Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
True Story Media. Hello, it's Andrea. We've got a fantastic crossover episode for you today with a very talented podcaster friend, Kate Downey, creator of Cramped, an incredible series all about Kate's journey to discover why she was experiencing horrific period pain and the medical odyssey she went on to try to cure it. What does this have to do with Munchausen by proxy, you may ask?
Kind of a lot, as it turns out. And we will get into all of that in this conversation. In the meantime, season seven is coming. We are working furiously to get all of those episodes in the can. This has been a very big, complex season to put together, and I'm really excited to share it with you.
As a reminder, if you want to binge the whole season at launch, that is a benefit of being a subscriber to the show on Patreon or Apple Podcasts, where you also get ad-free listening, access to the show's complete archive, and bonus episodes.
This month, Dr. Bex and I are going to be revisiting Mommy Dead and Dearest, the HBO documentary about the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, and also digging in a bit to these efforts to debunk the story of Gypsy's abuse.
Chapter 2: What personal journey does Kate Downey share about period pain?
Dark stuff. Speaking of which, if you have never left our show a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we sure would appreciate your doing so. We have gotten a whole string of negative reviews and ratings from non-listeners who were angry about us having Gypsy Rose Blanchard on. And look, this kind of thing is an occupational hazard.
My reporting is pretty reliably going to make some groups very mad at me from time to time. And I'm at peace with that. But if you do have something nice to say about the show, now would be a great time to weigh in. As always, thank you for listening to the show. I appreciate you. We'll be right back with my conversation with Kate Downey.
You may have heard me talk about this a bit already, but I wanted to remind you about Podcaster Pro, the podcasting app that I built with Studio because they are currently running a 20% off site-wide promotion starting Thursday, February 5th and running through Tuesday, February 17th.
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Podcaster Pro walks you through developing a strong show concept and format, teaches you the editorial process step by step, and gives you personalized feedback on things like episode outlines, audio drafts, and even marketing plans. This is not generic one size fits all advice. It adapts to where you are and what you want your show to do in the world.
I built this app based on everything I've learned, making nobody should believe me, both the creative decisions and the behind the scenes business realities. And this app is honestly what I wish I had starting out. So again, studio.com is running a 20% off site wide promotion starting Thursday, February 5th and running through Tuesday, February 17th.
So if you've been on the fence about trying it, now is a great time. You can find Podcaster Pro at studio.com backslash Andrea. That link is in our show notes, and I can't wait to hear what you create. Hello, Kate. Hi. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being with us. As we get started here, can you just tell us who you are and what you do?
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Chapter 3: How does the medical system often fail women with health issues?
Yeah. My name is Kate Helen Downey. I host a podcast called Cramped, and then I'm also a podcast producer on a number of other podcasts for money. Uh, but I have experienced severe period pain for 22 years and through producing cramps, I finally got answers to my severe period pain, got a diagnosis and I got surgery about seven months ago and I no longer experienced severe period pain.
I am so happy for you. Um, your show cramped is excellent.
Chapter 4: What is the relationship between endometriosis and severe period pain?
It is a very informative, but also fun and, uh, relatively lighthearted show. And I think it has that wonderful vibe of this is how women talk to each other about our mysterious medical experiences. Because, you know, as you say in your show, we've never really studied the female body. And it is one of those things with being a female body-haver.
You go through your life, and especially going through anything having to do with your reproductive health, it is a mystery why half the population is such a mystery. And that's kind of the crux. And I think there are so many crossovers with our show in maybe a way that would be unexpected to a casual observer.
You know, as I was saying to you just now offline, I think there are a number of conversations that I... want to make sure that we are sort of having on a continual basis because there is a real problem with the experiences many people, I would say a number of real problems that people legitimately have with
the medical system and that we find perpetrators find cover under those problems, which is sort of this compounding issue. And so I think it's really helpful to be in conversation with folks like yourself. But before we get into kind of some of those crossover elements, can you just tell us a little bit more about your story and like your professional background as you came into it?
Because I think that is another thing that you and I share, that we are sort of citizen journalist sojourners who found ourselves on these journeys because of a personal situation and then took it outward. Yeah, yeah. I came up in theater and live events, weirdly. So I was working at like the Public Theater doing Shakespeare. I was working at New York City Opera.
I got a job at a startup giving tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and like researching the art And that actually got me really into giving tours at science museums as well. And I found a love of science hiding under my like creative brain where I loved the history of science and how human it is and loved telling the stories of like how we got the knowledge that we have now.
And because of that, I ended up co-founding and opening a theater called Caveat in the that focuses on science comedy because I love the process of researching and then telling people these stories. So we did a lot of that during the pandemic that shut down. And it was a very lateral move into podcasting because I had essentially been doing podcasts just live on stage.
And we did a lot of like live podcast shows. So it was a pretty easy jump over to the podcasting side. And I've been doing that ever since 2020. And then on a personal level, I had experienced severe period pain since I was 14, since I got my period. I would throw up. I would pass out. I went to the ER a number of times because I couldn't stop throwing up for like –
eight hours, which I now know is a fun thing called cyclical vomiting syndrome. And most people get it from migraines, but it's a neurological thing that happens in the body with extreme pain.
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Chapter 5: How can women advocate for better healthcare regarding reproductive issues?
So fun. And I am a white average sized body person, sis. I grew up middle class. I have actually access to doctors. I can pay for medical care for the most part. I've had insurance most of my life. And every single doctor that I asked this question to of just like, what's happening to my body? This is not okay. This is not normal. I am generally a very healthy person.
Why do I throw up for eight hours when I get my period? They would give me an ultrasound. They wouldn't see anything on the ultrasound. And they would say, everything's normal. Have you take some ibuprofen? Have you tried yoga? Have you tried meditation? You might be stressed.
About five years ago, the word endometriosis started coming up when I would ask doctors about it, where they'd be like, it might be endometriosis, but I don't really know about that. And I never got referred to a specialist. I never got any imaging done other than an ultrasound.
Chapter 6: What are the complications of doctor shopping in the context of women's health?
And in the 22 years that I experienced this, at first, I didn't talk to people about it. I just felt like it was something that was happening to my weird body. It was something uniquely wrong with me that no one else, no doctors had ever heard of before. There were no answers for me. It was really scary and made me feel really different and vulnerable. So I just didn't talk about it for years.
And then once I got into college and like out of college and I'm a yapper, so it's discomfort about talking about anything like doesn't last that long for me. But I mean, it's interesting because, you know, Kate, like we have in addition to being artsy fartsy girls that found a deep love of science, which like, you know, same. I think another thing that we share is we're like around the same age.
Right. I don't know how this has shifted for young women now. I really hope it has. But, you know, there was a lot of, like, ew, gross periods messaging around that. I did not have the dramatic experience that you had. However, I did used to have severe period cramps. Really? The first time I ever had my period when I was 13, I had it for a month. Yeah. That happens to a lot of people.
And it really is this whole sort of thing. And then the other – the one time I ended up having to go to the ER was because I gave blood during my period and then had a vasovagal reaction where I puked in the middle of school. And it's just like – you know, these are nightmare scenarios for a teenager. We're just like, you know, having a body is embarrassing, period.
And like, then having a period is embarrassing on top of that. And so it's like, yeah, I think there are so many layers that many, many listeners will find relatable, even if they haven't had, you know, this sort of super serious. And I was one of those people who had resolved once I had babies. And I understand that was some advice that you got from doctors. Yeah.
About a possible solution to your serious period pain. Yeah. My first pelvic exam, which my mom took me to after I had my first throw-up, pass-out episode, which was only the second or third period I ever had. So she was like, I don't know what this is. This isn't what ever happened to me when I got my period.
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Chapter 7: How does societal perception affect women's health discussions?
She took me to my first pelvic exam. I asked... the gynecologist like, why is this happening? What's wrong with me? And her advice was, oh yeah, some women get really bad cramps, but it goes away when you have your first baby. And that was when I was 14. So I was like, not super helpful for me. Like anything I can do before that? Yeah. I mean, I had my first baby when I was 36.
So it's like, that's not a, you know, that's not a short road. It's like, just deal with this for one to two decades. Yeah. No. And a lot of people do have that experience. But a lot of people have the opposite experience where after they have a baby, their cramps and their period pain gets worse.
Because all we really know is that all of the hormonal changes that happen when you have a baby and all of the physical like musculature and ligament and bone changes that happen when you have a baby are it just changes things. It just like throws everything into the air and then like it falls down in a new pattern. And so like it might help or it might make it worse. Yeah.
So it's not good advice. Yeah. And having had two babies, like the degree to which it really settled on me in a new way because I had not had, you know, other than severe period cramps, which I just dealt with, I think like most people end up doing, right? It wasn't debilitating to the extent that yours were, but like-
You do realize, I think, if you haven't had this experience yet, going through pregnancies, you're like, why don't we know more about this? This is the oldest medical thing that's happened to me. It did land on me in a new way of like, why is there so much mystery around this? And then I think you come to find out these historical elements, which I have also researched for work because...
This starting point of sort of your entry into the medical mystery and this very obviously legitimate medical odyssey where you are not receiving good care, where you're not being listened to, where doctors are not listening to you about what works for you, not giving additional tests when they should. It is a very strong parallel to where this abuse pattern is.
usually starts, which is with gynecological issues, real and otherwise, with pregnancies, real or otherwise, with pregnancy complications, real or otherwise. And so it just, I think that's where so many sort of neurons were firing for me of this is the thing that is, there is this big legitimate thing that is providing cover for people who would want to abuse
that system because I think when I was listening to your show and and also just sort of yeah triangulating with my own experiences right and I think because of my family history I have maybe a more fraught relationship with going to the doctor than than other people not certainly to the extent that survivors of this abuse have it and then so there's all these levels of like you
mistrust of, you know, misunderstanding of certain pain disorders that affect primarily women. I mean, there's just so much complexity about this. And so I think it's helpful to sort of talk to someone who has been on one of these odysseys like you have and who's also been studying it at the same time. I would love to know sort of how you got to the bottom and figured out what the solution was.
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Chapter 8: What role does misinformation play in women's health care?
And I was like, yeah. And then they gave me morphine instead of a muscle relaxant, which like knocks you out. Like I was then asleep for like an hour and a half. And my then boyfriend, now husband, had to like sit next to me, next to his passed out girlfriend with like all the chaos of the ER happening around him for an hour and a half until I woke up.
And then they discharged me and I got a bill for $15,000. It was like, great. What is happening? Because I had accidentally gone. I had gone to the closest ER, which was not covered under my insurance. So that was fun. Yeah. And I think it's experiences like that. You know, I think a lot about why this form of abuse that we talk so much about on the show, Munchausen by proxy abuse.
which often starts with munchausen behaviors, right? Which is when people do these, you know, exaggerate, induce, or fabricate illnesses for themselves and then seek, you know, unnecessary or extreme medical care. And I think a lot about why these forms of abuse stay so hidden. And I think one of the elements is that when...
one of these perpetrators is telling their story to the media or telling their story to friends and family. And if you say something like, well, I took my child to all these doctors and they didn't listen and they didn't know what was wrong with her and they just sent me on my way and they were condescending.
And it's like, I think that really tracks for people because they're relating it to an experience that they've had And not factoring in the element that that person is not telling the truth. Because most of us, when we go to the doctor, or especially when we take our child to the doctor, we want to be well. We want our child to be well.
And if that's not your intention, then that's very different, right? But I think that's a huge reason. Like, this is... A pervasive experience. And what have you found talking to other people who've been through this, talking to experts? I think anecdotally, it seems like a lot of women have this experience. What have been your findings?
Have you kind of gone on this journey and found out how common this type of thing is? Yeah, well, first of all, for anyone listening who experiences severe period pain or ever has, you are very much not alone. 90% of people with periods report some kind of period pain, some kind of cramping, some kind of pain that goes along with their period.
30% of people with their periods report severe levels of pain that affect their day-to-day functioning. So 30% of us are severely in pain for up to a week a month and sometimes more if you have irregular periods or very long periods. So there are a lot of things that can cause that kind of pain and things that are like gynecological in nature, but also things like malnutrition.
There are a lot of things that can cause it. And a lot of conditions that even gynecologists are not aware of or well-educated in. Endometriosis is kind of the big offender here, WHO, which we are not a part of anymore here in the U.S. Oh, and we'll get to the RFK Jr. of it all in a minute here, but it's on my list. Oh, boy.
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