Life Conversations with a Twist
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Life Conversations with a Twist
Fibromyalgia Made Manageable: Small Habits to Calm Stress and Pain with Tami Stackelhouse
“As patients, especially with illnesses like fibromyalgia where your doctor really doesn't know what to do with you, it's our responsibility to educate ourselves as much as possible.” —Tami Stackelhouse
Some days your body sends signals you can’t quite explain and no one seems to have answers. It can feel like you’re carrying a weight that doesn’t show on the outside. There’s a better way to understand what your body is trying to tell you.
Tami Stackelhouse walks through the long road from years of pain and confusion to becoming a leading fibromyalgia coach and educator. Her story shows how science, self-advocacy, and the right support can completely change the path forward.
Topics we cover:
• Early symptoms people overlook
• How chronic stress can flip the fibromyalgia switch
• What doctors typically miss and why
• Why individualized care beats a one-size-fits-all approach
• Sleep, supplements, and daily habits that make a real difference
• How to find the right coach or provider
• Encouragement for anyone who thinks they’ve “tried everything”
Connect with Heather:
Episode Highlights:
01:29 Age and Life Stages for Women
04:26 Is Fibromyalgia Genetic?
08:25 Understanding Fibro Pain
11:27 Sleep, Supplements, and Small Steps Forward
15:21 Sleep, Diet, and Exercise: What Really Helps Fibro
18:08 Why Health Coaches Matter
22:25 The Future of Patient-Centered Care
27:51 Medication Misconceptions
33:09 Understanding Invisible Illness
39:39 Using Pain for Impact
Resources:
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Connect with Tami:
Tami Stackelhouse is a fibromyalgia specialist, coach trainer, author, and podcast host. After personally navigating a multi-year fibromyalgia diagnosis into long-term remission, she founded International Fibromyalgia Coaching Institute, a training program that certifies Fibromyalgia Coaches, wrote the book Take Back Your Life, and hosts The Fibromyalgia Podcast. With 16 years of helping people and clinicians better understand chronic pain, Tami also produces educational events (including the Living Well with Fibromyalgia summits) and connects patients to trained coaches and providers so they can build individualized, evidence-informed care plans.
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Heather Nelson: Hey ladies, it's your host, Heather Nelson, welcoming you to another season of Life Conversations With a Twist. This is a space where we dive into stories of remarkable women who've conquered challenges and emerged stronger. Join me each week as we unravel tales of resilience, triumph and empowerment. These narratives aren't just stories. These are stories of inspiration, and I'm so honored to have the space to share them with you. Plus, I will be sharing my own personal stories of inspiration as I navigate starting my own business and achieving my own goals. So whether you're driving in the car or out moving your body, get ready for heartwarming stories and empowering conversations together. Let's raise a virtual toast to empowerment, because here at Life Conversations With a Twist, every story has the power to inspire. Cheers, ladies.
Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I am very excited to have Tami on today. She and I just met. And if you're watching on YouTube, you will see her beautiful background. I love the color of your background. Welcome to the show. Tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, and where you live. You said you have a husband, so tell me all the things.
Tami Stackelhouse: So I am just outside Seattle. I live in Renton. For anyone who knows Seattle, we lived in Portland forever. I still think at heart, I am an Oregonian, but happened to live in Washington. Yes, my husband, Scott, and we've got two cats.
Heather Nelson: I love it. I'm just curious, age wise, how old are you? You said nothing was awful.
Tami Stackelhouse: I did. I didn't know you were going to test that in the first two minutes. No, I'm 54.
Heather Nelson: Okay, I always like to see where people are at in their life, and where they are. I also think, for people who listen sometimes, especially if they're in a transition, or they're struggling with it, what's next to my career? What am I doing? I'm starting to, obviously, and you probably can relate to this is that so many women are starting later in their real career, the things that they're really passionate about. I do love to put a little context to where everyone sits in their life. So you have a very unique journey. Tell a little bit of our listeners about, maybe little Tami? What did that look like growing up? And how you got into doing the work that you're doing now.
Tami Stackelhouse: Yes, yes. So this was not on my radar. Little Tami? Let's see. She first wanted to be a librarian, I think, because I love to read, I love books. I loved organizing my books, so I figured I needed to be a librarian so I would have books to organize.
Heather Nelson: Are you one of those that has a beautiful book display, and they're all color coordinated?
Tami Stackelhouse: I did until we moved from Portland to Seattle. I still feel bad about this, but we actually got rid of most of our books. I actually prefer reading on Kindle, which I hate. I actually prefer that because I felt like I was letting go of all my friends.
Heather Nelson: I have books. But once you read them, you either read them once, and they kind of just sit there, collect us, or you give them to somebody. But then, I have to physically read a book. I feel like we're on devices so much that I'm like, I need a book.
Tami Stackelhouse: Yes, yes. And I'll tell you my transition is actually what we're here to talk about. So little Tami really wanted to be a librarian, and then I wanted to be a paleontologist. I love dinosaurs, so a paleontologist. And then at one point, other than the librarian thing, science was always the thing. When I was in high school, I wanted to be an astrophysicist. My dad was a math and science teacher, so science was always part of my thing. And I think that has served me really well. Because when I was about 35, 36, I ended up being diagnosed with fibromyalgia. For people who may not recognize that word or have heard it but don't know what it really means, it's a chronic pain condition, and it causes widespread body pain, brain fog, poor sleep fatigue. And that was when I transitioned my books, because it just got harder and harder to physically hold a book and read, and just the extra effort of doing that.
Heather Nelson: I told you before, I always struggle with this word fibromyalgia. Is that a hereditary thing?
Tami Stackelhouse: There is a component that is hereditary. You are 8 times more likely to develop fibromyalgia if you have a first degree relative, so parent, child, sibling. But there is this sort of stress factor that goes with that. This is Tami's theory here, but I think genetics give us the possibility of ending up with fibromyalgia. And then how we live our lives and what happens to us are what actually turn it on or not. There seems to always be some kind of a trauma component. That could be physical trauma, like a car accident, or an illness, or a surgery, giving birth, those kinds of things. It could be a mental trauma. Obviously, abuse. In my case, it was chronic stress at a very stressful job. So there's some type of trauma that goes with that to flip the switch. And I think that's why we see more women diagnosed the older we get, because there's more opportunities for that switch to get flipped. You can still be diagnosed young, but less has happened to you in your life.
Heather Nelson: I didn't realize it was like that. Usually, it's a stress induced thing that changes that. What were the symptoms? What made you discover you had it?
Tami Stackelhouse: Yeah, good question. So I was working at a software company. I managed the customer support department, so the call center, all the email support. Chronic stress, I told you. I worked there for like nine years, and I had days where I used to joke, quote, unquote with my department, that if it wasn't written down, it didn't exist. So you couldn't just tell me something. You had to either write me a note, or you had to send me an email. If it wasn't written down, it didn't exist. And that was the brain fog. And then I would also have these moments where I was like, oh, my God, if I could just turn off the lights, close my office door, lay down on the floor for a minute, I could get a really good nap. I was just exhausted. And when you go home and you're achy, and you're exhausted and you're in your early 30s, I don't know. I guess I just thought that's what you were supposed to be.
Heather Nelson: It's what life was all about.
Tami Stackelhouse: As terrible as that sounds, when you're living it every day, you don't always know that that's not normal.
Heather Nelson: Did you go to the doctor and you're like, what is wrong with me? Why am I just falling asleep at work all the time?
Tami Stackelhouse: Yes, I did. I was prescribed antidepressants, and I was referred to a counselor. Basically, it's stress. But it's not stress causing something else. It's just stress. So I started doing my own research, and I ran across fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, those kinds of things. I'm like, hey, could this be what I'm dealing with? And at the time, my health insurance was through an HMO, so I lived in their little HMO box. They were fantastic for the things that they knew what to do with. If it fit in their box, they were awesome. But anything outside of that box, not so much. So I actually didn't get a diagnosis until I got married and got on my husband's insurance, got out of that HMO and could go see any doctor I wanted to. That's when I finally got my diagnosis. But it was several years of trying to find answers.
Heather Nelson: Did you have a lot of pain? I know you said part one of the symptoms is chronic pain. Is it like joint pain?
Tami Stackelhouse: It can be joint pain, it can be muscle pain. The thing about fibromyalgia pain is that there's no actual damage, so it moves around because the problem is actually in our brains and in our nervous system. It's in how our nervous system is responding to stimuli. So for people with fibromyalgia, one of my friends for a long time, she didn't wear sleeves on any of her shirts, because the sleeves literally hurt her arms because of her fibromyalgia. You might have your legs hurt one day, but then your back hurts the next. And so you get X-rays, you get MRIs, everything looks totally normal. And so it can be really, really hard to get a diagnosis. So for me, it was a little bit more of an ache than a sharp pain. And since then, most of my fibro pain got managed, when I was on a trip, I would wake up and I'd be like, oh, my gosh, I'm coming down with something. Of course, I'm on my trip, I'm getting sick. And then, oh, yeah, that's my old friend, fibromyalgia. So if you think about that achy feeling that you have when you have the flu, or a cold, or something like that, that's what my pain was like. Sometimes, even your eyelashes hurt.
Heather Nelson: Temperature affects things differently, right?
Tami Stackelhouse: I personally don't do well with heat. I don't do awesome with cold, but I feel like it's easier to get warm if you're cold. And you can only take so much off, but you can always put more on. But I have had clients who were just the opposite. I've had several clients who moved from colder places, stormier, windier places to like Arizona, and it definitely changed their symptoms. And then clients just the opposite who were in hot places that moved somewhere cold. So I think we all are a little bit different in how it affects us. We just have to figure out where our body is happiest.
Heather Nelson: My girlfriend struggles with the cold. I meet her and she's fully in sweatpants, and it's like 90 degrees outside. And I was like, girl. She's like, I'm freezing. And I'm like, wow. She loves one of the tanning beds, it helps her, like the warmth.
Tami Stackelhouse: Oh, yeah, infrared saunas, things like that.
Heather Nelson: So you're diagnosed with this, and then you're like, now what? What does this mean? What does this mean for my life? I feel like anytime we're diagnosed or we're told something, it's like, okay, so I gotta change what I'm doing now. What went through your mind during that time?
Tami Stackelhouse: So for me, because I'd done so much research and was trying so long to actually get the diagnosis, my first thoughts and feelings were really just relief like, oh, thank God, finally. And now, I'm going to get some help. She sent me home with, I don't know, three or four prescriptions to go fill, and a list of supplements to buy. And the first thing she had me working on was going to bed and getting up at the same time, making sure I got a bright light in the morning. A lot of times when we're diagnosed with things that are chronic, like this fibromyalgia, there is no cure. It can be managed to the point where it's in remission, and isn't an issue. But there is no cure.
And so when we have these chronic illnesses, we're just taught, learn how to live with it. It's not like other things where you're diagnosed and it's like, here's how to get over it. The conversation is completely different, and that's actually part of my mission. To help change that conversation. Because at this stage, my fibromyalgia is in remission. I haven't had any pain since 2018, so it's been 7 years now without any fibro pain. It's a hard conversation. Our doctors don't really know. They're not really taught. This isn't something that's really taught in medical school, so they don't totally know. And so we're just kind of given a couple of prescriptions and a list of supplements, and good luck.
Heather Nelson: Did you figure out a way? If you've had no pain in 7 years, what did you do to say, doctors, this is what you do.
Tami Stackelhouse: I would say, actually, a little bit of both. The things that she told me to do weren't wrong. They were definitely part of the thing, part of what I had to do. But I think our doctor's knowledge, if you think about your primary care doctor, goes to medical school, they've got to learn a little bit about a whole lot of stuff, right? And so a lot of our doctors give us the right information to get us started, but that's the limit for what they know. And so for me, I spent two years just kind of, I call it treading water. Just trying not to get worse, but also not really getting better either. And then had a conversation with my doctor to that effect. This isn't what I want for my life. What can we do? And she introduced me to a health coach in her office, and that really started to change a lot of things for me because it gave me someone to really strategize with, that didn't work. What can I do differently? How can we tweak this? How can I better prepare for that thing next time?
Also, somebody to hold me accountable for actually going to bed when I'm supposed to go to bed and take the things I'm supposed to take. My first major turning point was having that health coach to strategize with, hold me accountable, all of that. But I also kept looking and found some really great doctors along the way, and we uncovered a lot of other things that were impacting this. I was diagnosed with autoimmune thyroid, Hashimotos, low thyroid. So getting treatment for that. I have a sleep disorder called Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome. It's kind of like sleep apnea, but a little different. So now, I sleep with a CPAP machine. So just uncovering those things, treating those things as we went along every day, a little bit better, a little bit better. And one day, you get to where you don't have pain, but you do have to still keep working on it.
Heather Nelson: You keep bringing up sleep. So obviously, very, very important. And you mentioned supplements. Do you have to change your diet? What is that like? Can you still exercise? Are you supposed to exercise? What does that look like?
Tami Stackelhouse: So it varies per person. For me, sleep is, and always will be, the foundation for everything. The only time I ever have experienced fibro pain in the last, I don't know, 10 years or so, it was because I was in a hotel bed that was too hard. So for me, sleep is critical. For some people, diet change is also critical. Some people need to avoid gluten. Others, it's dairy. For some people, it's not too much sugar. I followed a gluten free diet at the beginning. I don't anymore. Diet was important for me to get the ball rolling. But honestly, I don't do anything special now. I probably should, but I'm not. And then we all should, just to be real here. For some people, exercise. They've got to move, or their body is unhappy. I think for most people with fibromyalgia, what I do with my clients is I kind of have them track their steps for a while, and then we look at how much are you actually moving. And some people need to do less. Some people need to do more. So it kind of depends on where you're starting.
And then like I said, it's very individual what each person needs to do. But if I could summarize all of it, what we want to do is we want to calm down that overactive fight or flight with fibromyalgia. We get stuck in that, and so we need to calm that down so that, obviously, that means good rest. That means a lot of different things. We also want to give our bodies the building blocks they need to be able to heal. And so that usually means eating more protein, that might mean more movement, that means better sleep, deep sleep, those kinds of things. Sometimes, addressing nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, all of that stuff, and then removing triggers. So taking out the things that we're doing that are making it worse. That would be things like too much sugar. Or for some people, gluten or dairy. Or too much exercise, pushing yourself too hard. So we've got to watch those triggers. Like I said, it can be really individualized, which is why it's so hard for people to get the right answer because it's not like, do this, this, this, this, and you're fixed.
Heather Nelson: Do you think that's why health coaches are becoming more of a thing? These people who are specialized in helping you, we're not all the same. Like you were saying, everybody needs something a little bit different. And they're able to really work with someone individually, one on one, and figure it out.
Tami Stackelhouse: Absolutely. It's why I started training coaches. So a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach is somebody who has been trained by me, and has learned all the fibro things.
Heather Nelson: So you basically took your education, everything you've learned these past year, and you're now gonna train people who help me. I love this.
Tami Stackelhouse: So my coaches graduate with over 370 hours of fibro education. Just to put that in context, doctors in the US receive an average of 9 hours of pain management training. So that's not even fibromyalgia, that's not even chronic pain, that's all pain, acute, chronic, everything. 9hours. It's not even 1% of the curriculum. We help to fill that gap because chances are, your doctor doesn't know, and it's not totally their fault. They haven't been taught. It wasn't part of their education. But also, you need them to have that knowledge. So now what? So my coaches have that education can come alongside you, teach you, teach your doctor. But also, we have fibromyalgia too. So there's a whole lot of, here's what I do in my real life. And talking to somebody who gets you.
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Heather Nelson: Do you think the whole medical industry will change over the next 10, 20, years? Exactly what you just said, they go to school, of course, I would want someone that if I was going in brain surgery, to actually be certified and really have done the work to be a brain surgeon. There's all these cancer treatments and different things that we are all going through, do you think that the medical industry will change and be more specific to one specific thing?
Tami Stackelhouse: Yeah. It is becoming a lot more patient centered. I have the privilege of getting to talk to medical students at Oregon Health and Science University a couple times a year, and the questions that they're asking, the way that they're thinking is so different than our middle aged white guy doctors. Let's be honest, when I said that you thought of somebody, okay, my daughter, yeah. But medical education 40 years ago or whatever is very different. And so now, it is all a lot more patient centered. Evidence based medicine is a big thing. That sometimes can bite you in the butt, though. Because sometimes, things that work, we haven't been able to get studies done for. Things that don't cost any money, don't make anybody any money. Those are the things. There is no money for studies. And so obviously, that can be missed. But yes, it is definitely shifting. And also this idea of individualized medicine where each person, like a cookie cutter approach, doesn't get the same results. I think that is becoming a little bit more known, more understood, and so I think we are going to see medicine change.
Heather Nelson: So interesting. So when you discovered you have fibromyalgia, did you stop working? I hope you really quit that job.
Tami Stackelhouse: Oh, my gosh, no kidding. I actually quit my job. I had only been married about two months, and in a nutshell, my boss blamed me for something that she had actually done wrong. And my husband was like, that's it. I'm coming to get you. And he rode down on his Harley, in his leathers, come stomping into the office like, where's my wife? It was seriously every girl's dream. It was the most awesome thing ever. But that was actually before I got diagnosed.
Heather Nelson: While you're going through this, I'm curious, did you work? Or was your time spent trying to feel better and not be in pain? You've learned so much now, and you're able to train other people to do it.
Tami Stackelhouse: I did try to work at the beginning. After I got rescued from that job, I did try doing a few other things. And honestly, I made some really bad mistakes that cost me all my clients because of the fibro and the brain fog, if we're really being honest. And so after that happened, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna focus on getting better. And so I really made that my job, like you were kind of suggesting there. But reading the books, pacing, I did a lot of journaling during that time, just processing things and figuring out what was working for me.
Heather Nelson: And so now, fast forward, you train health coaches around this. You also have a podcast and a book. Tell us a little bit more about that, and how that all came to fruition?
Tami Stackelhouse: After I started working with my health coach and started feeling so much better, I was like, that's it. I've got it.
Heather Nelson: Was it like a switch, like one day you woke up and you're like ish?
Tami Stackelhouse: It was about six months. But in those six months, I had improved so much. You don't really notice it when it's happening. You get to this point, you look back and you're like, whoa. It was like flipping a switch. It really took about six months, and then I was like, I figured things out that other people haven't figured out in decades so I need to pay this forward. That's when I became a coach. I've been a solopreneur for about six years when I decided that I wanted to start teaching people. And that really came about because I had clients over the years who worked with other health coaches who did not understand fibromyalgia and ended up worse off for it. So not that those coaches were bad, they just didn't understand fibromyalgia. So a lot of things. Exercise more, do this, cleanse, all of these things actually made their fibro symptoms worse. And I'm like, that's it. People really need to understand better. And so I actually wrote my first book to be the curriculum for the training program, and that came out in 2015. The book is, Take Back Your Life. And then I started teaching people at the end of 2015. I have done that now for 10 years. Wrote a second book along the way, started the podcast along the way, was executive producer for a Fibromyalgia documentary. So a lot of things along the way, but all with this idea of helping that individual fibro person out there who feels lost and confused, and isn't getting the help they need from their doctors. Because there is so much we can do, people just don't know, right?
Heather Nelson: And I think that goes with any chronic illness or other health issues that people have. I just laugh when you're like, oh, they are like, here's some medication to take. And that's always the reason why. I'm like, is it really, though?
Tami Stackelhouse: They gave me antidepressants at the beginning. That was the first thing I was given. But there actually is some good scientific basis for giving antidepressants for people with chronic pain, serotonin affects both our mood and our pain processing. So just because you were given an antidepressant doesn't mean your doctor doesn't know what they're doing, but that's just the beginning. That's not the end. There is so much more. There are things that we need to do. I'm actually encouraging my clients to take medication more than I'm telling them to not take medication. Especially these days, most people really don't want to take medications. And so often, they need to actually take more for a little while, because we have to change that nervous system. We have to calm down that fight or flight, but we also need to change how our brains are processing pain. We need to break that pain cycle. And sometimes, that does mean medication for a while so that you can eventually come back off that medication. But having somebody who understands that to be able to have that conversation with you, and really be able to guide you into what's best for you.
Heather Nelson: What is your input and thoughts around cannabis?
Tami Stackelhouse: Ah, good question. I think it is very, very helpful, particularly for chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia. With fibro, the CBD part of things helps some, but the THC is really what helps with pain management. So if you're just doing CBD creams, CBD tinctures, capsules, you're not getting the full pain relief. It's going to help some. There's reasons not to have. THC, for sure, but that is the part that really helps with the pain. But the CBDs can really help with sleep. And anytime we increase our sleep, our quality of sleep, then that is, for sure, going to help our pain and things like that. So there's lots of ways to use cannabis. You don't always have to have to inhale it. There's capsules. My favorite is actually topicals. So salves, creams, lotions, things like that. You can put it on where you hurt, and it just directly affects what hurts. So yeah, it definitely has a place.
Heather Nelson: I feel like there's so many more products now. Back when I was little, back in the day, you could only smoke it. You can drink it or have a little chocolate or a little gummy. I'm just curious, because I have had a guest on this show where she helps people with chronic diseases. Know that cannabis can be a helpful thing if it's done right.
Tami Stackelhouse: Yep, I absolutely agree with that. I'm glad we're starting to see more research being done, because I think the medical community's big hang up with it is that, I mean, and this is true for any natural thing. Pick two strawberries. One Sweet. One's totally not. One's big, one's little. If you think about it from a doctor perspective, how do we standardize, take X amount, right? So if we can get more research done and things like that, I think that will help our providers know how to have us use it.
Heather Nelson: How to prescribe it. It affects things so differently than where it's in pill form. I've had gummies before, some are stronger than the other and I'm like, it's literally in the same bag. But like, well, that one hit me a little bit differently than that one. What is your podcast about? Who's on your show? What do you talk about?
Tami Stackelhouse: So the Fibromyalgia Podcast, you might guess, is about fibromyalgia. Oh, goodness. I tried to do about half and half interviews and just me talking, teach. The interviews are with people like my coaches who are sharing their stories and their tips. But I also interview doctors, researchers. There was a new pain medication for fibromyalgia that just got approved in August, so we had them on to talk about their medication. Sometimes, it's tools that I have discovered to be helpful, and so we have people on to talk about that. But really, fibromyalgia is the central theme. So anything that connects with that, and for anybody who has fibromyalgia, like that's your whole life, everything connects with fibromyalgia. So we do talk about a lot of stuff, but it always connects up with your fibromyalgia, and how this is either helping or hurting.
Heather Nelson: I'll definitely have to send it to my girlfriend, because it's her life. I'm lucky enough that I get to work alongside her, and allow her to work when she feels comfortable, or when she feels good, and when she's mentally great and not tired. And so it's been interesting. And again, that was really my first interaction with anybody who's had chronic illness, and I just had somebody on that. We were just talking about chronic illnesses in general, and how it's so hard to tell. It's different if you have a broken arm or if you can physically see it on somebody. But when it's an internal thing, it's hard for us to understand what they're going through.
Tami Stackelhouse: Because you look totally fine. And some days, you are totally fine. I know that was really hard for my husband when we were going through that first little bit where I was diagnosed. Because one day, I'd be fine. I could go to the grocery store, whatever, or hop on the back. And then there would be other days where I'm like, could you get me a glass of water? I'm basically helpless. I know it was really hard for him. Like, what is going on?
Heather Nelson: Can't you get your own water?
Tami Stackelhouse: Yeah. And people think we're faking it. All those other things too. So yeah, your girlfriend is really lucky to have that.
Heather Nelson: Thank you. I appreciate that. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to touch on, or anything that you've learned or experienced? Or speaking to that person who might be listening, who might think that they might have it or going through it, what do you got for them?
Tami Stackelhouse: Yes, yes. So the first thing I want people to know is whether you have fibromyalgia or not, this is real. So this isn't a psychosomatic illness. It's not people faking it. It's not YOU thinking and making yourself sick. It's nothing like that. This is a real physical illness. There are really things going wrong physically in your body. That's the first thing I want people to know. The second thing is you can feel better. Your doctor just might not know what to do with you. And so as patients, especially with illnesses like fibromyalgia where your doctor really doesn't know, it's our responsibility as patients to educate ourselves as much as possible.
So listen to the Fibromyalgia Podcast. I've got a resources link on my website where you can download my books for free. Just educate yourself as much as you can. The more you know, the better. You'll be able to advocate for your needs and be able to decide, do you want to take that medication or not? Do you want to try something else instead, and be able to really evaluate your treatment options. So as a patient, you absolutely have to educate yourself. And at a certain point, especially right now, I'm talking to the person out there who's thinking, but I've tried everything. You've just tried everything you know. You haven't tried everything. I can guarantee you, there are things that we can do to help your fibromyalgia that you have not tried, and that you have never even heard of. So at that point, that's where you really want to make sure that you get the right person on your team who can fill that knowledge gap for you, and give you some guidance. So obviously, a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach is great. That could be a fibro specialist doctor, although those are very hard to find. At some point, you will need an expert on your team to help guide you into the things that aren't even on your radar yet.
Heather Nelson: Do you connect people to their coach?
Tami Stackelhouse: Often. So we have a Find A Coach option on our website where you fill out an application. We have a few different sorts of levels, I guess, of coaching. Everything from free consultations with either brand new students who are just trying to get some practice. Some of our coaches even provide a certain amount of free sessions. We've got student coaches. We've got certified coaches that have been doing this for years. Of course, there's ME. God, I've been doing this for 16 years now. So you choose the level that fits your budget, and the amount of knowledge that you need somebody to have. And then you can choose the coach. We will give you the options for that. And we've got coaches all over the world, all kinds of different histories, backgrounds, personal stories, ages, languages. There's a lot of options out there. And then just schedule with the person who makes the most sense for you. We do help match people up there. And then once you're working with a coach, we can also help you find providers. Sometimes, we have people that we can directly refer you to like, I know them. Here, go see this person. Sometimes, we just help you do the research. Maybe your insurance has sent you a list of doctors, and now you need to choose which one, we could kind of help you sift through that. But really, make that process a little bit faster and easier to find and connect with the right people.
Heather Nelson: What's next for you?
Tami Stackelhouse: Oh, my goodness. So right now, as you and I are recording this, we are kicking off our Living Well with Fibromyalgia Summit, the holiday edition. So we are doing two weeks of talks all around getting through the holidays with less pain and more joy. So that is literally what's next for me. But really for me, it is all about spreading that word. Fibromyalgia is real, and there are so many things we can do. You can feel better. That is my message. I'm trying to show up on podcasts and write articles, all of those things, and just keep training people. Because even with the coaches we have, there are millions and millions of people with fibromyalgia. It is 7.7% of women, and so we don't have enough. We need a lot more.
Heather Nelson: Thank you for doing the work. It's like one of those things. It's a blessing when you get told something like a change of twist, or whatever it is, and that is what changes your trajectory or your journey. I am so in awe and inspired by you continuing to show up and to support people. And to educate. Because I think, like you said, more people need to do that, so I'm so glad we connected. I'm so glad you're on the podcast.
Tami Stackelhouse: Me too. Thank you so much for having me. It's been so fun.
Heather Nelson: I hope today's episode resonated with you. And if it did, don't keep it to yourself. Spread inspiration. Share this episode on your socials. Tag me. And if there's anyone in your life who could use a dose of encouragement, pass it along. Looking forward to continuing this journey of inspiration with you. Until next time. Stay empowered and connected.