Meshia Escapes Chronic Hip and Leg Pain || Ep 69

Meshia is one of our star clients in the Pain Free Academy.

She's struggle with chronic leg pain, and hip and foot weakness due to multiple sclerosis. Within just a few weeks, she was walking longer periods and she's noted 90% relief from pain.

If you're looking for pain relief and getting stronger like Meshia, text "Pain Free" to 4159656580 or book a free consultation with our team.

Transcript

0:01

All right, so welcome to the Won Body Won Life podcast. Hi, I am your host, Dr. Jason Won, Lifestyle Physical Therapist. I love to just speak everything in regards to health and fitness, ultimately how to live a longer, a more pain free life, and have a sincere and innate passion for really helping people. Get back to what they, where they want to be pain free. So with that being said I have Mishia here and Mishia is somebody that's very dear to our hearts because she is one of our very successful clients. We haven't actually haven't had a client. With her exact type of issues. And we're just really excited to have her on board because she's had a lot of success. And Mishia just welcome in. How are you doing? Hi, I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Awesome. So Mishia, let's start here. I'd love to just hear not necessarily like what kind of brought you to, to us, but ultimately just, who you are as a person. So who are you? Where are you from? Tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm 51. I live in Atlanta, Georgia at the time. I was born in California, raised in Denver. I moved here when I was 16 to Georgia and I have a son. He's my caregiver. I'm an author of two books. I am a multiple sclerosis and a sexual assault advocate and just enjoying my life. The best I can. Awesome. I didn't know you're from California. What part of California were you born in? I was born in L. A. Okay. Very nice. And I grew up in Cerritos and Carson and Palos Verdes. Oh, very nice. My, my wife is from Alhambra and Monterey Park area. So I did not know you're from California. But anyways. Lovely to meet, another fellow kind of flooring there. So let's talk a little bit about just just growing up so what sort of activities did you enjoy doing and then ultimately, you started to develop some sort of neurological symptoms. So tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah, I used to run track, I used to run track in high school and just active child, but I used to fall a lot. And now that I know that I have MS, I was, I guess I had it at a young age. And I got diagnosed at 36, so it's almost 2020 years now I'm blind. I'm blind in my right eye. Yeah, tell me at 36, tell me what sort of symptoms you started to have, before you started diagnosing it, it must've been something that more so precipitated oh, there's, there might be something actually wrong and I need to get this actually resolved. I used to black out a lot, just get the vertigo. I don't know if you ever blacked out before, someone explain to you, describe how you get the butterfly feeling. It's like the blood rush to your head and you sparkling your eyes and you can't hear and I pass out. So then what made me go to the doctor is when I went blind in my eye. Gotcha. Gotcha. And then ultimately like how Over the past 20 years. So what have you been doing to I guess try to either mitigate symptoms or try to improve upon your symptoms try to improve your function So what I mean over the past 20 years, what are Some of the necessary things that you tried. When I first got diagnosed, I didn't take it seriously, but I noticed the weakness in my leg, the foot drop. I'm always tripping and falling. So I have failed so many times over, have failed so many times over the years. And my eyesight still hasn't came back or whatever. And then sometime I'll lose feeling in my left arm and the MS, the neurologist would tell me they don't want you working out. So I was scared to do anything and feel like to me, I was getting worse and the pain. And, but for me I walk, I used to walk a lot. Yeah. And what sort of pain specifically were you dealing with and how was it impacting you? Oh my gosh. I know I'm damaged from all the fall, So I know my left side, the muscles, the nerves, the tendons were just beat up. And I thought I was going to be like that for the rest of my life, so just achy, hurting, throbbing. I can't even bend my arm back. I couldn't put the charger in the car, I couldn't put my bra on. I couldn't put shoes on. That's how bad it was. So just. Got it. And then, so when you started to know these, notice these things just felt like your body was falling apart. Ultimately, like, how was it making you feel? I feel like my body's about to break in half. My lumbar, because my, I have no balance from the falls. So I feel like my body's just, I'm just gonna break. Any move I did, I'm like, okay, I'm scared to move. It hurts so bad. And then I had physical therapies and. Personal trainers, but nothing didn't work for me. Nothing did work. Interesting that you say that and mind me asking, like, why do you feel like it didn't work and what sort of, like why do you feel like ultimately it wasn't letting, leading to the outcomes that you wanted? Because I was listening to, with my other doctors saying they didn't want me to put too much stress on my body. You have to get past that hurdle. You have to get past that pain. We're not supposed to be in pain. Of course. So yeah, I learned. I just like, okay oh, that I got past that pain. Let me go a little further, with the personal trainers and some of the therapists were these things that the doctors told them like, oh, she shouldn't be stressing her body too much. Or was this something that you told them? Something they said there, they just said, and learn from what they learned with Got it. So many people were taught, based on your symptoms, or maybe they start to see the MS kind of diagnoses or the label is that they, what would you say that they seem hesitant or why do you feel like maybe they didn't push it that way? Do you feel like it was just based on what they've learned in the past? What they learned in the past. Okay. Got it. But now I see a lot of my MS warriors, they work out, they are working out. Totally. And that's part of, that's part of the things that we're challenging you. I guess fast forward till today 2024, you we somehow connected my people, mind you telling us like how we connected. Hey, I saw you on Instagram. So something about your video just. Touch me differently. And I was like, I'm gonna give him a try. I'm going to try. And then I contacted you and you hit me back. And like I said, I got nervous. I got okay, I'm scared now. I'm a very responsive person. Very responsive. So I've been with dealing with working with you since January. Yeah. And what were some of the fears behind that? I don't even want to put words into it. But what was causing you fear? Was it just like I replied too quickly? Or was that fear? Because was I going to do the program? First of all? Yeah, be consistent, persistent with inconsistency. And I thought about it. Okay this is Long distance. I'm, we don't, we're not seeing each other fits a person. And then if I'm going to put money into it, I have to do that first thing you put money in. So you're going to work. You're not, I'm not going to give you my money, and then tell you it didn't work. It didn't work. Yeah. So were some of the fears around, were some of the fears around the fact that you've done PT in person that passed and it didn't work? Or were the fears around, More so like around just like mindset Hey I've tried so many things in the past and what makes you think this would work with the peers around the online aspect? What do you think? No worries. I got two kids myself. They can easily be rushing into here right now. But Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that I've helped and we've helped people internationally. We've helped people thousands of miles away. So I guess when you first came into this and you're like, Hey, this is going to be very different from what I've tried. Why don't you just highlight just a couple things on what has made this experience different versus the other things that you have tried? The different techniques, the videos that you have given me to work with, it's different from the other, because I'm teaching the other therapists what let me try this, what you had, what you're showing me, I tell them what to do, and then the weightlifting, I love it. That definitely has changed tremendously. I feel so much stronger and the pain level has decreased tremendously. It's just wow, I should have listened to my body a long time ago. When did you start to notice results? It didn't happen right away because there was even a point of. Probably the first week you get your evaluation and sometimes you're hesitant. You're like, I don't know if it's going to work, but when did you start to notice results? Oh man, this is starting to feel better. Cool. One month. Awesome. And what about weight training makes you feel better? I feel stronger. I feel stronger. I feel more steady. My back feels stronger up in here. It feels really stronger. I core feel stronger. Yeah. I remember I pushed you really hard to do I think like side planks and some other things. And you were like, this is sore. This is like muscles that I haven't used. And I guess, was there a sense of. I'm just going to do it because I've already paid into this or, cause I, I made you do some hard things that you're just like, I don't know even know if I can do this. And you just kept persisting. What had you motivated to just keep persisting? Like even with stuff that you're like, Oh, this seems a little off. This seems I'm not sure if I can do this. Why not try? You don't, but you, what do I have to lose? Besides it's been stuck in the, being stuck in the bed and being bedridden. So the more you work, the more you feel better. I'm not as sore as I used to be. So I just keep working at it. I figure if I can give myself at least four days of a good workout, it pays off a lot. For sure. I just thank the Lord every time I finish my workout or when I wake up in the morning. Pain, no pain at that moment. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Dr. J. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, it's hard. No, obviously, the Lord above is superior to all of us. But the comparison in terms of the fact that being where you are after you're How long has it been since you've been diagnosed with MS? And being able to finally say, wow for the first time in a long time, I'm waking up nearly pain free. What sort of things go through your head about that? About how I feel now? Yeah. I feel grateful and happier. Yeah, before it was suicidal, to be honest with you. But now my mind is so much clearer. I can focus better. I started to write my third book and stuff. So you're in pain. You can't do nothing. You can't do nothing. It's okay, give me a pain pill, but that don't fix it a lot either. For sure. What's your exercise exercises. That's my pain medicine. So awesome. And you'll continue to use that medicine forever. And And it's a good, it's actually contrary to other medicines, it's a good medicine to get addicted to. Yeah. What's your, mind you asking, what's your third book about? Was that my MS is going to be my MS story, you're going to be in my book, Dr. Jay. So I'm letting you know that right now. So I'm going to, I'm going to read that book for sure. You're that book for sure. Tell us a little bit about the support as well. A lot of people are they know about me or they know about even in like our programs and what it's like, yeah. What, tell us a little bit about just the types of support that you found. The, you guys are awesome. The ones I have got in contact with the Laura and Sue May and Hillary and what's his name, Adriana. My, all you guys, everybody's awesome. Everybody's trying to give everybody encouragement. words, uplifting words and stay encouraged to keep going. Why do you feel community is, okay, so why do you feel like communities may be important for anybody that may be struggling with pain, disability, functional issues? Why do you feel like community is important to them? Because if we're all going through some kind of pain, so we all can connect with each other and maybe somebody else can connect with us. It's going through the same thing that I'm going through and we can talk it out and let them know this is what I'm doing and try, give it a try, just connection, the support. Absolutely. We need that. We need that. Check up on each other. For sure. Maybe even talk a little bit about just like even our, even your coach, so we have obviously, I'm still a very much a big part of the group. You also have people that are directly watching your account, making sure that you're progressions. Yeah. Tell us a little about even having your coach by, with you every step of the way how is it having a coach just to lean on all the time? Sometimes people don't like to work out by themselves, so you're not really working out by yourself and we're able to contact you guys and you guys will get in contact with us and show us different techniques and we get on the floor together, so that helps a lot. That definitely helps a lot. Perfect. Just stay motivated with that. Awesome. Outside of the strength training, what else have you learned? The strength training and the weightlifting. So like outside of that, are there other things that you feel like you've learned that have helped you to be successful till this point? Just my mindset. Me, just staying positive. Just, I'm only in control of my happiness. I'm an uplifting person anyway. Yeah we dabbled into other aspects that help you to be successful, namely things like nutrition and, sleep, all those things. Yeah. Ultimately, like we're what else besides the strength training, have we guided you in, because some people can just go strength training, but they don't know how to recover properly. What have you learned about recovery, nutrition, all those. All the books, I don't know how to answer that. Everything is, I learned a lot. I learned a lot. Everything positive. It's just a difference. It's, this is different difference with the pain free academy. Perfect. Just get diving maybe into the MS aspects a little bit more so that people can get educated on what that it entails. So yeah, describe people just. Besides, you said foot drop, you've had, and everything it's an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and the spinal cord and your eyes and it can affect any lower part of your extremities or upper extremities. It can affect your bowels, either you have loose bowels or constipation and people have shake a lot. They call that look like Parkinson's disease, but with the eyesight, the numbness, like you can lose ability to any part of your limb. Yeah. So mine's right now, just my blindness in my right eye and my left side is the bad side. Yeah. And it's like a thumbprint. So everybody's different, of course. Of course, yeah, MS being a more upper central nervous system disorder, right? That affects the periphery. So some people don't know that as far as the peripheral nervous system, it's everything outside of the spinal cord, but it affects the brain and the spinal cord directly, which is like the command center, which then governs your skin, the heat sensations, the numbness it affects motor function. That's essentially what led to the foot drop as well. Yeah. But like with the strength training or even with the mobility, all the things we've given you have a lot of other symptoms resolved besides pain. That's, I don't, other than that, I don't deal with a lot of stuff. Thank God. Okay. Yeah. With and I guess now that you are, you even said it just last week, you're like, okay, I'm 85. 90 percent pain free, which is phenomenal. That's what our, that's what we're all about. And we're here to support you. What's next for you? What's next over the next two to three months? What goals might you have around your function or your strength? Do you have any other goals that you might have set for? My goals is to walk without any assistance. That's my goal. And I'm working on that every day, every single day. So mainly it's just to walk again. Yeah, I saw you walking recently and you filmed yourself doing it and it seems like overall walking is the pain is reduced and then the walking is still a work in progress, but nonetheless walking with much less pain and much less of the compensations that's. That's got to feel pretty good, right? Yeah. In regards to that let's say there's you meet another person and they're going through some sort of pain or they have some sort of nerve issues. What would you say to that person in terms of if based on the experience that you've gone through, I know we're skeptical of things sometime, but. If you feel it in your heart, just give it a try. Give it a try. Especially if you're going to pay money, do it. If you're not going to pay, don't waste your time. Don't waste Dr. Jay and the Pain Free Academy's time. This is all about you. You are in control. So they give you the work, you got to do it. Absolutely. Yeah. And, people, they, they have a sense of, wondering about, okay there's obviously a lot of stuff online. There's YouTube videos, there's Instagram videos, there's millions of free exercises and a bunch of different things out there. What would you say to a person That's going down that route. That is just, they're going through like information overload. And what would you recommend to that person? That's constantly just going through social media and looking up hashtags. What would you say to that person? Again, like I said, give pain free academy. Because I did the same thing, trying to memorize the videos, going back and try to copy them on the video. But you have your community right here. And you already have your program set up for you and you have your exercises already. That's that they put for you. You tell them what's going on with you and they give you what you need to do. You keep on strolling around different videos if you want to. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but I think the overall as we continue to develop a, as we've already developed a great relationship with you things that I know that you've taught us are. recipes and other great things that you provide to us that we didn't know about. But I just want to say thank you for just being a beacon of light for the community. An example to not just people in the Pain Free Academy, but example to other people that may be struggling with pain, struggling with neurological symptoms. Some people just You know, some people have MS and some people have different neurological disorders and they're straight up depressed about it and they feel helpless and they're, and once they're in that state, they're not willing to take the actions necessary to get them out of there. They just accept Hey, and I know that's how you felt as well. With regards to that, I think that To lead this off, do you have any other maybe words of advice or things that you may want to tell other people before we sign off on this? We only have one life to live, so why not make the best out of it? And I always say, I am not going to my grave with my greatness still inside of me. That's what I say. So live your best life. Exercise. Absolutely. Exercise being the medicine for everything. So I think that's a great way to end this. You took the words right out of my mouth. And obviously this podcast is called the one body, one life. So right then and there, you hit it right in the nose that if we only have one life, we know that potentially this is the one that we have. And it's you might as well just live it to the absolute fullest. Take actions to better yourself. mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. And and yeah, if need be, ask for help, ask for assistance. There are people that are better than me. There's people that are better than you, Mishia. And it's always good to learn from people that are a few chapters ahead of you. And it's good to invest in yourself, invest the time, energy and resources to, to accomplish what you want. With that being said, I just want to end this, the one body one life podcast. If you. Do you have any questions for me or even Mishia? Feel free to message me on any of my major platforms, Dr. Jay you can also text me as well. My, my phone that you can text me too is 415 965 6580. I answer all my texts personally. And also if you're interested in potentially working with us as far as from a coaching perspective. Definitely just email us or text us and we'll be happy to have a conversation same way like Mishia was genuinely curious and interested in what we did and Therefore, now she's a beacon of light and really doing well and 85, 90 percent pain free. I can't say enough about how emotional and how great that makes me feel as well. And I'm sure you feel the same. With that being said, Mishia, I just wish you all the best. And I know we're going to continue to do great work to getting you walking better and walking stronger and being just a more resilient version of yourself. I appreciate the time Mishia and we'll talk soon. All right. Thank you.