Autoimmune Adventures

Chronic illness can change more than your body. It can change how you see yourself, how you trust yourself, and how you imagine your future.

How do you rebuild a relationship with yourself when your life no longer looks the way it once did?

In this episode of Autoimmune Adventures, Becky and Stacy welcome Devin Scott for a thoughtful conversation about identity, self-compassion, authenticity, nervous system regulation, and rebuilding self-trust after chronic illness.

Devin introduces the concept of the "self-self relationship"—the relationship we have with ourselves through our thoughts, emotions, choices, and experiences.

Together, we explore:

What it means to be a friend to yourself, especially during difficult times

Why chronic illness can bring grief for the person you used to be

How people-pleasing, shame, and expectations can affect our sense of identity

Why authenticity doesn't require constant vulnerability or perfection

How physical and emotional experiences influence our relationship with our bodies

The importance of community and connection in navigating chronic illness

Where to begin when you're exhausted from trying to fix yourself

This conversation isn't about returning to an old version of yourself. It's about learning to respect, understand, and advocate for the person you are today.

Connect with Devin:  https://integrativebodymindtherapies.com/

Connect with Autoimmune Adventures:

Website: https://autoimmuneadventures.com

Instagram: @theautoimmuneadventurers

Subscribe for authentic conversations, lived experience, and tools for navigating life with chronic illness while still creating a life filled with joy.

Remember, you are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do!

#AutoimmuneAdventures #ChronicIllness #SelfTrust #AutoimmuneDisease #NervousSystemRegulation

How can faith help you navigate chronic illness without placing additional expectations on yourself? What does whole-person wellness look like when your health, energy, and abilities are constantly changing?

In this episode of Autoimmune Adventures, Stacy, Becky, and Alysia welcome Dr. Katherine Lanning, occupational therapist, founder of Transformed for Life, and host of the Transformed for Life podcast.

Katherine shares her personal journey through unhealthy coping patterns, perfectionism, emotional struggles, and spiritual transformation, along with her professional perspective on helping people engage meaningfully in everyday life.

In this conversation, we explore:

The art of wintering and learning to accept changing abilities

Why chronic illness is never evidence of insufficient faith

Katherine's personal experiences with trauma, wellness, and spiritual growth

The importance of caring for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being

How occupational therapy supports meaningful daily activities

Why even small accomplishments deserve recognition

Finding balance between personal responsibility, self-compassion, and rest

We also discuss the relationship between faith and healing with an important distinction: faith can provide comfort, strength, and meaning, but it is not a guarantee of physical healing or a replacement for medical care. Every person's experience with chronic illness is different, and ongoing illness is never a spiritual failure.

Whether you're living with autoimmune disease, navigating a difficult season, or looking for ways to care for yourself more fully, we invite you to join us for this thoughtful conversation.

CONNECT WITH DR. KATHERINE LANNING

Founder and Podcast Host — Transformed for Life

CONNECT WITH AUTOIMMUNE ADVENTURES

Website: https://autoimmuneadventures.com

Visit our website to join the waitlist for Advocacy for Life, our self-advocacy course, or subscribe to The Scenic Route newsletter for real support for the road you didn't choose.

Subscribe to Autoimmune Adventures for authentic conversations, lived experience, and tools for navigating life with chronic illness while still creating a life filled with joy.

You are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do.

#AutoimmuneAdventures #ChronicIllness #FaithAndChronicIllness

Can you have autoimmune disease even when your bloodwork is normal?

Rheumatologist Dr. Naureen Alim explains why symptoms, history, and lab results need to be considered together.

If you’ve ever left an appointment feeling unheard—or wondered how to explain everything you’re experiencing—this conversation is for you.

Stacy, Becky, and Alysia welcome Dr. Naureen Alim, a rheumatologist, allergist/immunologist, physician educator, and founder of Wellness Rheum, for a conversation about autoimmune care from the other side of the exam room.

We discuss:

• What bloodwork can and cannot tell you about autoimmune disease

• Why your symptom history matters when putting the diagnostic puzzle together

• What patient self-advocacy looks like from a physician’s perspective

• How to prepare for a productive rheumatology appointment

• What helps build a strong doctor–patient partnership

• Why time matters in autoimmune care

• The experience that led Dr. Alim to create Wellness Rheum

Dr. Alim shares how she listens to patients, approaches uncertainty, and helps them understand what to expect between visits.

What do you wish your doctor better understood about your experience? Share what you’re comfortable sharing in the comments.

ABOUT AUTOIMMUNE ADVENTURES

We’re three sisters sharing lived experience, practical tools, and honest conversations about life with autoimmune disease. Our goal is to help you feel seen, supported, and more confident advocating for yourself.

CONNECT WITH US

Website: ⁠https://autoimmuneadventures.com⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/theautoimmuneadventurers/⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@AutoimmuneAdventures⁠

Subscribe for more conversations about autoimmune disease, chronic illness, and self-advocacy.

You are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do!

This episode offers general education and personal perspectives. Individual symptoms and test results should be discussed with your own healthcare professional.

#DrNaureenAlim #AutoimmuneAdventures #AutoimmuneDisease

How do you advocate for yourself when chronic illness affects nearly every part of your life?

Self-advocacy is about more than speaking up in a doctor’s office. It’s learning to trust yourself, communicate what you need, set boundaries, ask questions, recognize when you’re overriding your own body, and make choices that protect the life you’re actually living.

In this episode of Autoimmune Adventures, Stacy, Becky, and Alysia share the experiences that led them to create Advocacy for Life—including some of the times they got advocacy very wrong.

Becky shares what years of navigating breast cancer, chronic illness, specialists, and the medical system taught her about becoming an informed and active participant in her own care.

Alysia talks about the deeper foundation of self-advocacy: recognizing that you are worth the trouble. She shares why acceptance—not giving up, but acknowledging the reality of where you are—can help you advocate from a place of greater confidence and authority.

And Stacy explores something we don’t talk about nearly enough: the ways we can gaslight and override ourselves. When we ignore what our bodies are telling us, push past our limits, or measure our worth against expectations we physically cannot meet, advocating with everyone else becomes that much harder.

Together, we talk about advocacy in the places where chronic illness actually happens:

• Medical care and navigating the healthcare system

These are lessons we learned through years of chronic illness, mistakes, hard conversations, and eventually learning that having agency doesn’t always mean getting the outcome you wanted. Sometimes the victory is knowing you stood on your own side.

Those experiences became the foundation for Advocacy for Life: Your Trail Guide to Navigating Chronic Illness.

🎙️ In this episode: the story behind the course—and why it matters.

🧭 ADVOCACY FOR LIFE WAITLIST

🌐 AUTOIMMUNE ADVENTURES

🎧 LISTEN TO AUTOIMMUNE ADVENTURES

You are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do!

#ChronicIllness #SelfAdvocacy #PatientAdvocacy #AutoimmuneDisease #AdvocacyForLife #AutoimmuneAdventures #MedicalAdvocacy #ChronicIllnessSupport #NervousSystemRegulation #InvisibleIllness

How do PTSD service dogs help—and what are they actually trained to do?

Lee Atherton says her service dog, Shadow, saved her life. Now she’s working to help other people living with PTSD and hidden disabilities experience the safety, independence, and support a trained service dog can provide.

In this episode of Autoimmune Adventures, we sit down with Lee, a chaplain, speaker, PTSD service dog advocate, and founder of Phoenix Rising: Service Dogs Saving Lives.

Lee shares her own experience living with PTSD and the extraordinary role Shadow played in her life—from recognizing signs of anxiety before she noticed them herself to providing deep-pressure therapy, waking her from night terrors, and helping her navigate everyday life.

We also talk about:

• What a PTSD service dog is trained to do

This conversation isn't simply about loving dogs. It's about what can happen when a highly trained animal gives someone living with trauma another layer of safety, support, and independence.

🎙️ Subscribe to Autoimmune Adventures for honest conversations about chronic illness, advocacy, nervous system health, invisible disabilities, and building a meaningful life when your health changes the road you expected to travel.

You are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do!

What happens when you spend decades searching for answers — and every doctor sees only one piece of the story?

In this episode of Autoimmune Adventures, Haresh joins Stacy, Becky, and Alysia to share what happened when years of symptoms, diagnoses, specialists, and unanswered questions finally began to form a bigger picture.

We talk about the emotional cost of living without answers, his eventual urticaria diagnosis, why fragmented healthcare can make complex illness so difficult to understand, and what changed when physicians finally had time to look at his entire story instead of one symptom at a time.

Haresh also shares how his decades in technology shaped the way he thinks about patterns and healthcare — and why that experience ultimately led him to create Scenario Health AI, a platform designed to help patients organize and communicate their health stories.

We also talk about something that matters deeply to us at Autoimmune Adventures: self-advocacy.

How do you keep asking questions when you're exhausted?

Finally, Haresh tells us about his book, The Ghost in My Body, and the 55-year medical mystery behind it.

If you've ever known something wasn't right in your body but struggled to find someone who could connect the dots, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe to Autoimmune Adventures for honest conversations about autoimmune disease, chronic illness, self-advocacy, and building a meaningful life in a body that doesn't always cooperate.

You are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do!

#ChronicIllness #PatientAdvocacy #AutoimmuneDisease #MedicalMystery #AutoimmuneAdventures

Can emotions affect chronic pain? What does neuroplasticity have to do with persistent symptoms—and can the brain learn new pain pathways?

In this episode of Autoimmune Adventures, Dr. Tovah Goldfine joins Stacy, Becky, and Alysia for a conversation about chronic pain, emotions, neuroplasticity, and the connection between the brain and body.

Dr. Tovah is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Rehabilitation who specializes in neuroplastic chronic pain, MindBody approaches, TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome), and brain and nervous-system training methods. Her work brings together decades of experience working with the physical body and her study of neuroplastic approaches to persistent pain.

In our conversation, Tovah explains how our understanding of the brain has changed and why neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to change and develop new pathways—has opened new conversations about persistent pain.

We explore the relationship between emotions and pain, what it means for the brain to “learn” a pain pathway, and how thoughts and emotional experiences can affect the way we feel in our bodies.

We also address an important distinction:

Talking about the brain does not mean pain isn't real.

And recognizing connections between the brain, emotions, nervous system, and physical symptoms should never become another reason to blame someone for being sick.

Tovah leaves us with a powerful idea: instead of viewing the body as something that is punishing us, what happens when we become curious about the ways it may be trying to protect us?

• Can emotions affect chronic pain?

Dr. Tovah Goldfine is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Rehabilitation who specializes in neuroplastic chronic pain, MindBody approaches, TMS solutions, and brain and nervous-system training methods. She also hosts the TMS RoundTable, which brings together health professionals and people sharing recovery experiences around chronic pain, autoimmune conditions, and neuroplastic symptoms.

Visit Dr. Tovah Goldfine's official website

You are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do!

This conversation is for informational and educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized medical evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment.

#ChronicPain #Neuroplasticity #MindBodyConnection #DrTovahGoldfine #AutoimmuneAdventures

How does red light therapy actually work—and what happens inside your cells when you're exposed to red and near-infrared light?

Dr. Paul Barattiero joins Autoimmune Adventures to explain the science behind red light therapy, mitochondria, ATP production, oxidative stress, cellular energy, inflammation, and recovery.

We've all seen red light therapy everywhere—from wellness centers and gyms to spas and home devices. But seeing that familiar red glow doesn't tell us what is actually happening inside the body.

So we wanted to understand the science.

In this episode, Stacy, Becky, and Alysia talk with Dr. Paul about how specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared light interact with our cells, why mitochondria and ATP production matter, and how oxidative stress can interfere with cellular energy.

We also explore the growing body of research surrounding photobiomodulation and its potential applications, including recovery, sleep, cellular function, collagen production, and more.

And then we get practical.

With so many red light devices now on the market, how can consumers know what they're actually getting? Dr. Paul explains why factors such as wavelength, irradiance, dosage, exposure time, and independent testing matter when evaluating red light technology.

In this episode:

• What red light therapy and photobiomodulation actually are

For anyone living with autoimmune disease or chronic illness—or anyone who's looked at all those glowing red panels and wondered, “Does this actually do anything?”—this conversation gives you a fascinating place to start.

Please note: This conversation is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Discussion of research or potential applications does not mean red light therapy has been proven to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent a particular disease or condition. Talk with a qualified healthcare professional about your individual health needs.

You are worthy of joy.

🎉 100 EPISODES. And we didn't get here alone.

This episode is our love letter to every guest who trusted us with their story—and to every person who has listened, watched, shared, commented, laughed, cried, learned, and walked this trail alongside us.

For our 100th episode of Autoimmune Adventures, the three of us—Stacy, Becky, and Alysia—got together IN PERSON to celebrate something that once felt almost impossible to imagine.

One hundred episodes.

Instead of simply looking back, we wanted you to hear the voices that helped bring us here.

So we went back through some of our favorite conversations and pulled together a montage of moments from the extraordinary people we've had the privilege of interviewing—patients, advocates, doctors, researchers, authors, experts, and people who simply had a story worth telling.

Because that's what Autoimmune Adventures has become.

It isn't just our story anymore.

It's a collection of stories about living in bodies that don't always cooperate. About searching for answers. Being dismissed and learning to speak up. Losing pieces of the lives we thought we'd have—and discovering that there is still so much life waiting for us.

It's about science and advocacy.

Grief and ridiculous laughter.

Hard conversations and hopeful ones.

And above all, it's about people reminding other people:

You are not walking this trail alone.

To every guest who has sat down with us over these first 100 episodes: thank you.

Thank you for your vulnerability.

And to every member of this community who has listened along the way—whether you've been here since the beginning or found us yesterday—thank you for giving these conversations somewhere to land.

We don't know exactly what the next 100 episodes will hold.

But we know we're not done asking questions.

Here's to the first 100. 💜

You are worthy of joy. Disease does not define your life. You do!

#AutoimmuneAdventures #100Episodes #ChronicIllness #AutoimmuneDisease #AutoimmuneCommunity #ChronicIllnessCommunity #PatientAdvocacy #SelfAdvocacy #InvisibleIllness #AutoimmuneWarrior #ChronicIllnessSupport #PatientStories #AutoimmuneAwareness #WomenWithAutoimmuneDisease #PodcastMilestone

What is hydrogen water—and what could molecular hydrogen have to do with oxidative stress, inflammation, energy, and cellular health?

Dr. Paul Barattiero joins Autoimmune Adventures to take us inside the science of molecular hydrogen and explain why this tiny molecule has become such a fascinating area of wellness research.

In this episode, Stacy, Becky, and Alysia ask the questions many of us have had about hydrogen water: Isn't hydrogen already in water? What is oxidative stress? Why does the human body need hydrogen? What role does the gut play in producing it? And what should consumers understand before investing in a hydrogen water system?

Dr. Paul breaks down the relationship between oxidation and reduction, discusses hydrogen production within the gut, explains the potential role of molecular hydrogen in supporting cellular function, and walks us through the technology behind the Echo Water Flask.

For anyone living with autoimmune disease, chronic illness, fatigue, or inflammation—and anyone who's seen hydrogen water everywhere and wondered what the science actually says—this conversation is an accessible place to start.

In this episode:

About our guest:

IMPORTANT: This conversation is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. Always discuss changes to your health or treatment plan with your qualified healthcare provider.

You are worthy of joy.