How to Use Neuroscience to Heal Chronic Pain with Jane Hogan

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:00:03 Hi and welcome to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jessica Drummond, and I am so thrilled to have you here as we dive into today’s episode. As always, innovating and integrating in the world of women’s health. And just as a reminder, the content in this podcast episode is no substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment from your medical or licensed health care team. While myself and many of my guests are licensed healthcare professionals, we are not your licensed healthcare professionals, so you want to get advice on your unique circumstances. Diagnostic recommendations treatment recommendations from your home medical team. Enjoy the episode. Let’s innovate and integrate together. Welcome back to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. Hi there. I’m Doctor Jessica Drummond, founder and CEO of the Integrative Women’s Health Institute. And today I have an exciting and deeply fascinating episode for you with Jane Hogan. Jane Hogan is the wellness engineer. She left a 30 year literal civil engineering career to become a health coach, and she did that because she was diagnosed in her early 50s with severe rheumatoid arthritis, and she suffered for years with intense chronic pain throughout her body.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:01:46 And she learned that, of course, there are conventional ways to address this. There are integrative and functional medicine and nutrition and lifestyle medicine ways to address her chronic pain. But then we go deeper to really get to the root root and be able to consistently implement these nutritional lifestyle supplemental changes, sleep changes, but most importantly actually changing. And I would say not most importantly, but equally as importantly and in a way that’s really empowering. If you or your clients are suffering with chronic pain, if you’ve ever been told it’s all in your head, that is not true. This is actual symptoms. You’re not making it up, you’re not crazy. And your nervous system, your autonomic nervous system driven by your subconscious nervous system, driven by everything that’s happened to you and your trauma and your history and your thoughts about yourself, play a role in this challenge. And that’s really empowering, because there are things you can do to actually shift your brain chemistry. And in this episode, we’re going to talk about and not just your brain chemistry, but your body, your immune chemistry, your endocrine chemistry, your hormones, your blood chemistry, literally your labs.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:03:14 And we do this all the time. And this is, I think, one of those strongest values of health coaching in your practice. If you already have a clinical practice or, as you know, stepping into a new career in health coaching, this is why Jane was so inspired to shift into becoming a health coach. And we’re going to talk about some really fascinating research in multiple personalities disorder. And exactly how that directly connects to chronic pain will surprise you. Enjoy this episode and I’ll meet you on the other side. Hi and welcome back, everyone to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jessica Drummond, and I’m so excited to introduce you today to Jane Hogan. She has her own experience with healing from complex chronic pain related to autoimmune disease. And I know that pretty much everyone in our community has some experience with chronic pain, either in your practice or in your own body. And we’re going to talk about today, I think the most fascinating work that Jane does, which is what do we do when all the diets and the supplements and the exercise programs and the manual therapy isn’t enough? I wouldn’t say it doesn’t work, because, Jane, you’d probably agree with this.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:04:46 Like we make some progress, but then what’s the next level of healing? So welcome, Jane.

Jane Hogan 00:04:51 Thank you. Jessica. I’m so happy to be here. I love talking about this and I love sharing it with people. So just thank you for the opportunity.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:05:00 Thanks. So before we dive into the tools that you use, can you tell us a bit about what you were originally an engineer. So why this second career? What was the inspiration I know.

Jane Hogan 00:05:17 Well, 30 years as a civil engineer and now the wellness engineer, I was like happily moving along in my career, very close to retirement, right after 30 years. But before retirement, I developed rheumatoid arthritis after I had a really stressful year. All of a sudden within three months, barely able to walk and I basically figured it out and reversed. It wasn’t very quick. It was a circuitous kind of, but I did it using kind of natural stuff. I was working with the natural path and all that in the beginning, and then I would kind of get so far and I knew there was something I was missing.

Jane Hogan 00:06:00 So I figured out the other puzzle pieces. And actually, even before I started healing, I kind of had this experience where it might sound a little woowoo, but I’ll just go with it. I had this experience where I was like, if this is the way my life is going to be and all this pain, and I can’t do anything that I’ve been waiting to do my whole life, and retirement, travel and all this, then I’m ready to be done. And the next moment I like heard a voice or knowing in my head said, you’re going to figure this out and you’ll teach other people. And so I felt this calling Jessica to do this, I couldn’t just do. I was teaching engineering. I didn’t want to teach that anymore because I felt like I had something that I knew now that was more valuable and would really change people’s lives. I mean, I love teaching engineering, but this is different. I hear all the time now that their lives are changed because of what they’re learning.

Jane Hogan 00:06:56 And so this is what I love to do now.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:06:59 That’s wonderful. So you and I were talking about how often when people are diagnosed with an autoimmune disease or chronic pain, there’s sort of this pathway through the health system that they will often take. So, you know, conventional medicine has certain medication tools to sort of suppress symptoms of autoimmune disease or try to stabilize the immune system in some way. And that is an okay option sometimes. And sometimes we can do pain management, but it’s not really a root cause healing perspective. Then people will move to work with people like me, functional nutrition or functional medicine or naturopathic medicine. And they will have a sort of recommendations. And then they’re ready to go deeper and work with those of us who are either also coaches or our coaches that collaborate with other clinicians in a multidisciplinary way. And so I’d love to talk about the coaching piece, because there are lots of books written about autoimmunity and lots of kind of nutrition plans and immune balancing supplementation. But when that is not enough, which is often the case, people sort of hit a wall or they don’t sustain the changes that they have been, you know, co-creating with their nutritionists or functional medicine practitioners.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:08:31 They’re like, okay, yeah, I’m going to do this nutrition plan and they do it for six weeks or something, and then they sort of don’t stick to it. So what’s the next step when it comes to a coaching model to support both consistency and the deeper, I would guess, you know, social emotional autonomic nervous system pieces.

Jane Hogan 00:08:56 Yeah. I mean, I went that path. I’m working with a functional medicine practitioner. And, you know, it would help. Right. And I was doing the anti-inflammatory diets and that helped. And I was taking the supplements and then dealing with the infections. Turned out I had Sibo every time I thought, okay, this is the answer, this is the answer. And I would get a bit better, but I would still have flares, right? Which is a sign that the disease is still, you know, or the. Well, yeah, let’s call it disease is still there in the body. And anyway, along my path, I was working with that functional medicine practitioner, and I wanted to kind of like, how am I going to tell the story? So I actually went into coaching the Health Functional Medicine Certified Health Coaching because, well, it was a one year thing I could do online.

Jane Hogan 00:09:40 I wasn’t going to go back at my age then and, you know, trained for years to be a functional medicine doctor. So I kind of did this to learn a bit more about functional medicine, but made with the possibility that maybe that would be the route. And when I got into the program, we had a mind body component every single month, and I had always really been interested in that kind of thing, even though I was like very engineer type of person. I also believed in the mind body connection. I knew that there was something to it, and so for me, that was the missing puzzle piece, that there’s more going on. Our subconscious mind takes control of all of the autonomic processes. We don’t think about it. And so what is feeding into that subconscious mind? It’s nothing except really like a computer. And so the programs kind of go in there. And so it assesses the programs and then, okay, how are we going to run this body in response to those programs.

Jane Hogan 00:10:42 So I came to realize that I knew that my illness had been brought on by stress, but it was like that was a sudden stress. My mother had died suddenly, and I was the executor, and I had a lot to deal with. Plus, I mean, I was dealing with grief. She was my best friend. And then I also had the house to deal with that. My parents had lived in for 50 years, and they were travelers and collectors. And I have three siblings. So, you know, there was a lot going on. So I thought that was the stress. But I came to realize that I really had stress my whole life. I didn’t have a traumatic childhood, I wouldn’t say, but we’ve all got messages, you know, along our life. And so I had a message being the third child in the family, you know, the older siblings. And I got the message that I kind of didn’t matter that much or I didn’t have anything to say that was valuable or whatever.

Jane Hogan 00:11:38 So I had this underlying kind of sense of stress my whole life. I wasn’t even aware of it. It’s so subconscious. Right? And so there’s working with that to regulate the nervous system. Because all of this is undercurrent of stress, puts our nervous system in that constant stress response. And then it can’t deal with infections and then it can’t deal with a digestion very well. Our immune system gets weak. Our endocrine system doesn’t function like it should. So our reproductive system, like all of our systems are not operating all is well basis. They’re operating on a are you know right.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:12:19 Right.

Jane Hogan 00:12:20 I could die because the brain really can’t tell the difference. I love this little expression. I don’t know where I heard it first. Can’t tell the difference between taxes and tigers taxes. Right. And I’m not wanted are equally life threatening to the brain. And so we have to work on those messages. And so that to me was where when all else isn’t working, then probably these things need to be addressed.

Jane Hogan 00:12:46 And that’s regulating the nervous system. And there’s lots of ways to do that.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:12:50 So what are some of the tools then. And I’m assuming that people will continue addressing the physical. They’ll continue eating the anti-inflammatory diet. They’ll continue slowly getting movement back in their lives. And what are some of the tools of changing that slow, subconscious undercurrent of you’re not enough or, you know, whatever the messages are, this is too much for me to carry. You haven’t paid your taxes. Who’s in charge of that? You know, like whatever it is, what are the tools to shift those messages? What are some of the more healing messages? First of all.

Jane Hogan 00:13:36 Well you’re right there’s a lifestyle factors. And if you follow functional medicine there are like the five modifiable lifestyle factors which include your diet and movement and prioritizing sleep and lowering stress. But to me that’s a huge one. And your relationships right. So there’s those lifestyle factors which are tied to habits. Right. And so require habit change which that’s kind of part of it.

Jane Hogan 00:14:03 And I find that people are trying to muscle through habit change because I got to and they’re fighting against a nervous system that’s dysregulated is very hard to do. But when we kind of come and we address some of these other things which I’ll talk about now, then it makes it easier to follow up and follow through on those lifestyle changes that are going to be supportive to healing. So I like to start with, like, first of all, having a vision of what you want. The one thing, what is something you’re missing out on now that you can’t do because of whatever health challenge you’re facing, and get really clear, what does it look like pictured in your mind? And use all your senses. And I love to adding a song because music is so powerful and evokes emotions. And really, it’s not just the vision, it’s the emotion we want to feel because emotions are vibrations in the body, and that helps send the signal because our cells lists, they pick up on vibrations, right? So our cells get that, our subconscious mind starts to get this message.

Jane Hogan 00:15:06 Okay. It can’t tell the difference between a real and imagined image. So it’s like, okay, this is what’s going on. I’m going to, you know, support it. And we have a reticular activating system in our brain that pays attention to what we think about most of the time. And so if we’re flooding our mind and our body with this image of this is me doing what I want to do, then it starts to pick up on the things that will support that. It will start to help you follow through on behaviors that will support that. So as an example, mine was I love hiking. And at the time, you know, when I was at my worst, I couldn’t even walk around the block. It’s so much pain and inflammation. But I imagine myself climbing this peak. There’s a second highest peak on the island of Newfoundland where I live, called Grossman Mountain. I’d climbed it before, years before, so I was imagining myself on top of that mountain. I would even, like, put my arms up like I’m at the top.

Jane Hogan 00:16:04 And the song I use was Miley Cyrus The Climb. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It really evoked a lot of emotion in me. And so every day, like, I would just picture this. And so that was one of my tools. And I think it’s a great starting point. Like what is your goal.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:16:22 Yeah.

Jane Hogan 00:16:22 What is your goal.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:16:24 That’s so powerful. You know, people athletes have been using this same kind of strategy as long as I’ve been an athlete, which is basically 50 years now, and it’s our master coach in our health coaching program, Kathy teaches an entire module on visualization and imagery because there’s so much good research there is that your body and even your ability to do these things change by, you know, you can actually gain muscle strength and things like that by visualizing this. So I love that image, and especially because you were in this almost transition point where you were about to step into your retirement, that you would kind of seen in one way, and then all of a sudden you’re like, are not happy.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:17:12 What’s going on? I can barely walk around the block. I thought I was going to be like hiking with my husband. So I really like that because we know that that not only is really powerful to keep people like aligned with committing to their changes, but it actually also changes people at a biochemical and physiologic level. So it.

Jane Hogan 00:17:37 Really does. I don’t know if people really understand. It’s something I talk about a lot. You know, the idea that our brain and our thoughts change our chemistry, our biology and chemistry in the body. And so what our constant thoughts are is going to change us physically. So that’s a great tool to be able to do that. And one of the things I talk about a lot too is kind of changing those beliefs. So I have to really talk a lot about how our brain runs our body and the beliefs. And great examples are things like talking about the placebo effect, right, the placebo and the nocebo effect. And also I find it really fascinating with those multiple personality disorders when they’ve studied multiple personalities and they’ll have documented cases, one personality will have all of the blood chemistry and so on of diabetes.

Jane Hogan 00:18:27 And then in another personality, all that changes. I mean, it’s fascinating, right?

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:18:32 That’s cool. I have not heard of that research. I love that I’m going to read all of that now.

Jane Hogan 00:18:38 Yeah. So it’s when people start hearing this then it kind of can shift their beliefs to, again, like even doing this exercise of visualizing every day, it’s a new thing. It’s a new habit. So if they can believe that it’s really going to work, then it helps them do it. It just feels really good to do this visualization as well. So that’s the great starting tool. And then there’s also things like you know we have they say 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. Most of them are negative. Most of them are on repeat. So that’s what’s been programming our subconscious mind. So if we want a different output in the body we need to change the input. And so another way we can do that is through repetition. It’s how we learn everything. The brain is so good at learning, right? So we give it something else to learn.

Jane Hogan 00:19:28 And I found affirmation super helpful for me. I use them a lot, but not just like reading. I am healthy and strong. I am not just that, but really feeling it. So looking in the mirror for me, you know, I mentioned I was really close to my mother and I didn’t really realize I was doing affirmations in the beginning and the beginning. I was kind of like imagining what my mother would say to me. And you’re doing great, Janey. And coming along, look how far you’ve come and that kind of stuff. You’re going to be fine. This will pass. And after a while I realized it was switching to me saying it. So starting with the words I am right, I am. And I would say things like I am healthy and strong. I am climbing that mountain. I am and I love this one. An example of what’s possible. And every day and every way I’m finding new solutions to help me heal things like that. So doing a lot of those, but really feeling it.

Jane Hogan 00:20:31 The key is in the feelings of it. So I find that powerful. And you do these things enough and repeat them enough. It’s like putting seeds right, seeding your subconscious mind with new thoughts. So that’s another great tool. And some other tools are just kind of tied to that. But messages of safety. So I use this a lot with my chronic pain people. And there’s a lot of science behind this. Now we keep telling our nervous system, when you’ve got an illness or you’ve got chronic pain or whatever, there’s a lot of fear. So we then we get I mentioned the brain is really good at learning. It learns fear. And our brain especially pays attention to anything that’s fearful. And so I used to have this fear of even though I believed I was going to heal, every time I went to see the rheumatologist, he’d say, you know, well, I think you should take these drugs because you’re going to get permanent damage if you don’t get this under control. And so talk about inducing fear.

Jane Hogan 00:21:31 Right. So I was like, for me, I didn’t want to take the meds. Not saying that anyone should make that choice totally up to them, but for me, that’s what I wanted to do. But I had this fear of I got to figure this out quickly. And so that was creating fear also. I mean, I was doing the anti-inflammatory diets and I kind of got afraid of food and that created fear as well. So we need to break that pain fear cycle. And so it’s kind of like reminding your brain, yeah, I got this bit of pain in my body, but I actually like I’m fine in this moment right now. I’m fine. Everything’s okay. I’m breathing. I’m alive. It’s fine in this moment. And so it’s constantly training the brain to notice whatever it is that’s bothering you, whether it’s noticing you’ve got an illness and going, but I’m fine. See in my body. Look, I’m here. I’m supported by this chair. I’m breathing. All is good.

Jane Hogan 00:22:34 So it’s. It’s retraining the brain with tool. What I call brain retraining tools. Right? Retraining the brain for safety because we’re stuck in that non safety. Right. Which is the dysregulated nervous system.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:22:49 Yeah. And I think that’s so important because in both conventional and functional medicine the tools can be challenging depending on your lifestyle depending on your financial resources depending. You know I see this a lot of times in people who have molds illness, for example, you know, it’s like, oh my gosh, you better move out of your house and throw out all your stuff and burn it. And also, by the way, 80% of homes in the US have mold or 60% and 80% of workplaces. So there’s also, like, nowhere for you to go. Yeah. So if that’s the narrative in your own brain, it’s going to actually amplify the immune system’s reactivity. Exactly. And I think that’s really hard because the reality is, yes, we want to try to lower the toxic load. And the same thing with eating the anti-inflammatory diet.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:23:45 But I do see this a lot in my clients with endometriosis, because there is a lot of talk in both functional medicine and the internet. And, you know, even my perspective is to use some anti-inflammatory nutrition. But I have really shifted my practice in the last like five years to worry a lot less about that because of exactly what you said. Eventually people develop food fears. That is actually worse than occasionally just eating a piece of pizza or whatever.

Jane Hogan 00:24:17 Yeah, I found that, too, Jessica. I started off like it was all about. Okay, let’s get you on this anti-inflammatory diet. I mean, yes, let’s eat. Well. I kind of feel like planning meals is kind of a little magical, because when people plan meals, they usually make better choices in the last minute. But what matters more is like, how do you feel when you’re eating? Because if you’re in a stress state, you’re not going to digest well, which means you’re not going to absorb nutrients anyway. So at least feel calm and enjoy your food and feel gratitude for your food.

Jane Hogan 00:24:54 Chew slowly right? And you know, chew a little.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:24:58 Do your food actually chew? Yeah, yeah, actually do your food.

Jane Hogan 00:25:02 And like, say put your utensils down and put your hands in your lap while you’re chewing so that you know, you’re having to almost take a breath then before you have something else. So yeah, relaxing. And to me how you eat and how you feel while you’re eating is almost as important or more important than what you’re eating.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:25:22 Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. So you’re doing the lifestyle changes to the best of your ability without being too attached to them. So occasionally you’re going to stay up too late. Occasionally you’re going to eat too fast or not perfectly or whatever, and yet you’re going to be focusing on taking care of yourself in a way. And I think this is also where the subconscious mind comes in. Sometimes people have trouble sticking to 80, 85%, 90% taking care of themselves in the way that going to bed at the right time and moving their bodies and all that because there is an undercurrent of not worthiness or I come last or, you know, I don’t need as much help as other people, you know, whatever it is.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:26:10 And so we’ve got some of the tools around reframing affirmations. I am where the I need support just as much as anyone else you know. I’m worthy of support. I’m worthy of eating delicious salads whenever you know I can do to to really get that stuck in the brain. Like, because, you know, you were 50 ish when this happened, right? So you had 50 years of programming before this. How long and do you have to do it in a number of different ways, the affirmations and the visualizations and, you know, the music and and and or how quickly can the brain adapt? How quickly can it change?

Jane Hogan 00:26:52 I think that really depends on the person and what feels right for them. And I always focus on just making progress, like doing all that feels like too much. We’ll just do little bits, right? Or, you know, it feels like too much to do affirmations and you’re visualizing every day like pick one one day, one another day. It’s really about just making progress and taking baby steps.

Jane Hogan 00:27:16 If you keep taking baby steps, you’ll still get to where you’re going.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:27:20 Yeah. And so for you, how quickly were you able to transition from literally not being able to walk out around your block to stepping into this new career? Because we all know starting a business is not the simplest thing to do.

Jane Hogan 00:27:35 Yes, well, let me see. I was diagnosed and well, the symptoms came on in 2016. And you know, I started right away. Well, maybe within three months I had heard about anti-inflammatory, you know, and how gluten and dairy can affect joints, which totally blew me away at the time. I had no idea. So I kind of started on that and then I in the fall. So that was a few months later. I found Functional Medicine doctor, and then it took about a year to get the Sibo cleared up. And then it was after that that I started the coaching program in January 2018. Feeling a lot better? I finished that in 2019 and I think that was when I left my career.

Jane Hogan 00:28:19 And so by then I was a lot better. I still had some flares happening here and there, but I was a lot better. But I found I really needed that time for me to. There was a lot of things I wasn’t liking about my career anymore, and so that was a big stressor for me and the job environment and so on. And so getting away from that really gave me the opportunity to finally focus on me. And, you know, I thought for years I didn’t have a choice that I had to stay there. And I think I was lucky. Maybe I did have a choice and it might be harder for some people. So I realize now, though, that it’s not really the situation. It’s how we feel about a situation. Stress isn’t the thing. Stress is how our nervous system responds. And so maybe if I had had different tools, I might have been able to respond a little bit differently. So kind of coming back to this, it’s really for all of these things.

Jane Hogan 00:29:16 It’s like it’s an awareness. How am I feeling? Most of us are so disconnected with like, how am I feeling in this body? Right? We’re in our head. And I had no idea the tenseness I had in my body. I mean, I kind of knew I used to get a lot of neck pain and shoulder pain, which very common with people, like feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders. Right. But I had this tightness in my solar plexus and just really like very disconnected from my body. So really being aware, like, how am I feeling? Do I feel tightness anywhere? And I use a lot of different tools for really kind of focusing on different areas of the body, whether it’s tightness or whether it’s pain and coming at it, almost personifying it like it was a small child or a pet. To say I got you, I’m here for you. Imagine squeezing it, giving a hug from the inside, that kind of feeling of a loving compassion towards the areas that are obviously not working that well.

Jane Hogan 00:30:25 And I think of it as well from, you know, sort of think of an energetic kind of point of view. If we’re focusing our attention on it, we’re telling our brain, send energy there, send like oxygen and blood to this area and help it heal. It can’t heal if it’s not getting oxygen and enough blood. So that’s some other tools that I use really tools of, I guess you would call it somatic type of tools, right. Getting in touch with the body.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:30:51 And like somatic self-compassion. Really. Yeah. Yeah that’s lovely. So I want to highlight for people that it’s very normal that these kinds of deep more full recoveries take years and that’s okay. And you still may have flares. I mean, I would imagine you don’t feel like you’re in absolutely perfect health. Absolutely. Every day, like some days you might have a little headache now, or neck tension or a joint pain here or there, but it’s less triggering to the whole system to be highly reactive. Would you agree with that?

Jane Hogan 00:31:32 Absolutely.

Jane Hogan 00:31:33 We’re a process, right? It’s not like one and done. Now I go back to where I was. It’s a constant process. And as you said, it’s a lifetime of thinking and behaving. And sometimes I do slip back into my people pleasing and perfectionism. Gotta get it done. What if I don’t get my to do list on. I mean, even now we’re getting ready to go away on vacation next week. I’m going to be gone for a month. And it’s like, I got so much to do. And I go, okay, Jane, stop putting the pressure on yourself. It’s okay. It’s fine. Right. So I got a little bit of a headache yesterday, and so I had to remind myself, it’s okay. It’s like, what if I didn’t get it all done? Still fine.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:32:14 No good. Still fine. Right? Yeah. And I do believe that’s a really dramatic mindset shift because we are having to unwind so many years of, you know, whatever the training was, even if you had a very healthy childhood and life, like there are still certain messages that are running through or certain levels of stress that kind of break the camel’s back, if you will, whether they’re physical, you know, whether you have like an injury or you have a death in the family or you go through a divorce, like these things bring a lot of attention because they rattle the system significantly.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:32:58 But you sort of have two choices in that moment, you can be like, oh my gosh, like, this ruined my life and I can have total compassion for that. Like, yes, it can absolutely feel like that. And you deserve to sit in that feeling for as long as it takes. And for your own sake, at some point, if you can find a little glimmer of standing on top of that peak and just feeling that sensation.

Jane Hogan 00:33:31 Yeah, I know, Jessica. I really feel for people. When something comes along in your life that drastically changed your life and you’re like, my life is never going to be the same again. It’s hard, even though I do believe, like everything happens for us and there’s gifts in it. Like, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now if rheumatoid arthritis hadn’t come into my life. So I do see it as a gift now. What did I see? Did I feel like it was a given moment when I was in a lot of pain? Probably not.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:33:57 Yeah, absolutely. No. Definitely not. right.

Jane Hogan 00:34:00 But the thing.

Jane Hogan 00:34:01 Is, this is the hardest thing for people to grasp that as long as we are stay in that mode, we cannot heal. Yeah. And so you can exercise your right to feel sorry for yourself and that’s okay. But if you want the future you to experience life again and follow through on your dreams, then you have to start making changes when you feel ready and but you don’t have to. You can stay where you are totally fine, but the chances of healing are probably, I would say, not going to happen lower.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:34:35 Not at least the you know, you may be able to manage symptoms to a decent level. Yeah, but you’re right. And that’s very hard because I think we want to be clear here that we’re not saying that your endometriosis, your autoimmune disease, your chronic infection, your dysautonomia, your MCAS, your mold toxicity is in your head because it’s not. There are real physical manifestations of this, and you have to work on both of these systems to really improve it.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:35:12 And I think that’s getting more and more true because when I talk with naturopaths, you know, who have been in the field, I’ve been doing this for 25 years. When I talk with my naturopathy and functional medicine colleagues, and we’ve all been doing this for 20 or 30 years, there has been a level of worsening of the physical symptoms because we are exposed to more toxins than we used to be, like glyphosate didn’t even exist in 1990s, you know, until 1990s. EMF, you know, emfs viral loads, lots of impacts to our gut microbiome, microplastics in all of our food. I mean, our food and clothes, you know, so there’s not like a clean, pristine environment anymore. And not that there. You know, we used to have a lot more coal in the air. Like there’s been challenges throughout history. But I think anyone who’s been in clinical practice for an extended period of time now, in the last 2 or 3 decades, recognizes that the physical illnesses are getting more complicated.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:36:21 And so this becomes even more important. And also a little bit more challenging because you can easily get on your phone and research rheumatoid arthritis and be, you know, immersed in you’re going to be in a wheelchair in two years. Like this has destroyed my life like lots of scary stories like that. So one of the tricks I’ve found in my practice is to help people find the stories like yours where, you know, look, everyone has the ache or pain here, and they’re there kind of thing that you’re talking about, the less impactful it is. And in 3 or 4 years, if you’re literally sitting in a wheelchair right now, in 3 or 4 years, you could be going on vacation for a month.

Jane Hogan 00:37:08 And you’ll be healing along the way, right? So your symptoms will not necessarily be in a straight line. They might go up. They might go down. Right. So this is healing and this is healing. Both are healing. Yeah I think it’s really important to be aware of like who you are surrounding yourself with the stories that you’re letting yourself read because you will find evidence of people who haven’t healed.

Jane Hogan 00:37:32 You will find evidence of people who have healed. I do that in the beginning, I was like finding people that had healed and I was searching for that. But most people, if they’re just do a search for, you know, diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, they may not get those stories showing up. And also, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of Facebook groups, for example, of, you know, support groups for And you go into those four groups and it’s not very supportive. It’s very fear inducing. People posting pictures of their deformed joints.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:38:01 And yeah.

Jane Hogan 00:38:02 It’s very scary, right? So be careful of what you allow, like protect your thoughts and what’s going in like as if your life depends on it because your life does depend on it.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:38:13 Yeah, yeah. So this is not in your head. You’re not making it up. And we have to use tools that are different from just directly altering biochemistry via nutrition supplements, medication, surgery. I think this is one way to really frame this is we have the opportunity to use our own brains to shift our own biochemistry.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:38:41 I know, and physiology, which is pretty dramatic, I think, you know, just to circle back that story, you know, if we have stories in the literature of people with multiple personalities disorder and literally having different blood chemistry in one personality versus the other. It shows what a fascinating and valuable tool your own brain is if you can learn how to use it.

Jane Hogan 00:39:07 And I find Jessica, it’s empowering, right? Because we’ve all been very conditioned to a disempowering model where we go to someone else and put our healing in their hands. And, you know, maybe that’s okay. But I think we haven’t really been taught that fundamentally and foundationally. We are the ones that create that healing environment. And so I feel like it’s empowering as opposed to disempowering. But it takes a little bit of it. It’s a paradigm shift. Right. So for people to think, well, what I am the one that can do this and actually no one else can do it right. It has to be you that does it.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:39:51 Yeah. For sure. Thank you so much, Jane. I think this has been a really important conversation, because people with complex chronic illness really need the tools to learn how to do this. And your work is doing a great job of it. That’s what health coaches do. That’s what we train in our programs. That’s what our coaches are out doing. That’s what we do in our practice here at IUI, and I think people really need to understand what health coaches do, and this is one of our most important roles. So thank you for sharing your story.

Jane Hogan 00:40:28 thank you, Jessica, for the opportunity, I love it. I love getting healing stories out there because it shifts people into hope and then empowerment. Right.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:40:38 So good. Yes. Thank you. So where can people find you learn more about your work, all of that.

Jane Hogan 00:40:45 My website is the Wellness engineer. Com and I’m on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook search either Jane Hogan Health or the wellness Engineer and I have a podcast, Wellness by Design.

Jane Hogan 00:40:59 You’ve been a guest on the podcast before, so I’m doing what I can to, you know, spread the word and give people hope. And I love blending together the proven science. And these, you know, sometimes what might think of as spiritual practices as well, but that have been around for thousands of years, that really do work because of our nervous system.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:41:20 Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you for all that. And we’ll share links to all of Jane’s tools and her work in the show notes. Thanks again for being here. And thanks, everyone, for joining us for today’s episode of the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast, and we’ll see you next week.

Jane Hogan 00:41:39 Thank you, thank you.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:41:44 That episode with Shane Hogan was probably one of the most impactful episodes we’ve had so far. You know, I think at this point it’s more and more common knowledge that just masking symptoms of chronic autoimmune diseases with immune suppressive medications is not the only answer, and it may be part of the answer for some people’s journeys so that they can have some symptom relief in the meantime.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:42:15 That’s really important and valuable. And then we also know that there’s sort of a functional medicine approach to chronic autoimmune diseases that influence chronic pain, and that is by optimizing immune and digestive function and the barrier between the digestive system and the immune system, the gut microbiome. Jane briefly touched on how she experienced Sibo, and it took her a year or so to unravel that, and that was a big part of her healing journey. But I think what she’s talking about today is where all of us in this field of integrative and functional medicine, when it comes to chronic illness, especially autoimmune diseases, complex chronic pain conditions, complex post-viral syndromes, we also have to address the emotions and the thoughts of chronic fears of our lives. Just lifelong. Trained in beliefs. I must do this perfectly. I must fully commit. I can’t take a break. I’m, You know I’m not enough. And changing those messages to our own brains, with our own brains can actually change our physiologic functioning and our biochemistry, even at the level of our blood labs.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:43:35 And that’s so inspiring. I think it can be frustrating because it feels like it’s another thing ING for someone with chronic illness to have to own and work on, its like. How much work on myself do I have to do? I’m already making myself the perfectly balanced breakfast, and I’m going to bed at 930 and I’m taking all my supplements and I’m exercising and I’m being in the sun and I’m like, now I have to do nervous system regulation work and mindfulness and brain retraining strategies and affirmations and all of it. And journaling. Right. It can be overwhelming, but it also shows us the power of finding places and spaces and people in our lives for accelerating the healing potential of all the other tools. And it doesn’t always have to be about work. It can be about stepping more fully into that beautiful vision. So I hope this episode inspires you to start just one shift in your practice or in your life. And for me, the simplest shift to start with is what’s step two? And our method is getting really, really clear on the vision.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:44:54 There’s immense data that if people are visualizing an outcome, the brain does not know the difference between that imagery and reality. The more you sit in that imagery, in that vision, and you bring that vision into your attention, you breathe into it. It’s actually powerful medicine and it’s accessible to everyone. I think it’s a great place to start in your practice. It’s evidence based, it’s nourishing, and it doesn’t have to feel like a lot of work. It can feel joyful because feeling the the joyful safe, calm, peaceful sensations and emotions, as you heard Jane say, is a key part of the healing. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you have something to take back to your practice, and I look forward to seeing you right back here next week on the Integrative Women’s Health podcast. Have a great week. Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. Please share this episode with a colleague and if you loved it, hit that subscribe or follow button on your favorite podcast streaming service so that we can do even more to make this podcast better for you and your clients.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:46:29 Let’s innovate and integrate in the world of women’s health.