Winning Isn't Easy: Long-Term Disability ERISA Claims
Nancy L. Cavey, a seasoned attorney with over thirty-nine years of experience, explains the complex world of filing for Long-Term Disability benefits. Filing for disability can be a confusing, life changing event, so with her deft expertise, Nancy will guide you through:
- The ins-and-outs of ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act), which governs group Long-Term Disability Claims.
- Information regarding the process and lifespan of a claim, from the initial application to the request for hearing stages.
- Traps and tactics disability carriers (such as UNUM, The Hartford, Lincoln, and MetLife) use to hinder or deny your claim, including independent medical evaluations, surveillance, and arbitrary and capricious arguments downplaying the nature of your disability.
- Insights, overviews, and claimant stories regarding disease-specific content (ranging from commonplace ailments such as workplace injuries or accidents, to difficult to diagnose illnesses such as Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis, and POTS).
- Pertinent news happening in the disability world, and
- Much, much more.
Each episode of our podcast Winning Isn't Easy will expose you to invaluable tips and tricks for surviving the disability claims process (a system that is often wrought with pressures and pitfalls designed to encourage you to give up the benefits you rightfully deserve). As host, Nancy will often be joined by guest speakers who themselves are industry experts, ranging from lawyers specializing in related fields and doctors focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases, to our associate attorney Krysti Monaco.
In her late teens, Nancy's father was diagnosed with leukemia. As someone who witnessed firsthand the devastating emotional and financial impact on both individual and family that being disabled and filing for benefits can have, Nancy is not just an attorney, but an empathetic presence who understands what you are going through.
Do not let disability insurance carriers rob you of your peace of mind. As a nationwide practice, The Law Office of Nancy L. Cavey may be able to help you get the disability benefits you deserve, regardless of where in the United States you reside. Remember - let Cavey Law be the bridge to your benefits.
Check out the links below to engage with us elsewhere:
Website - https://caveylaw.com/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/CaveyLaw
Winning Isn't Easy: Long-Term Disability ERISA Claims
Living Well With POTS: A Conversation With Nutritionist and Advocate Jill Brook
Welcome to Season 5, Episode 43 of Winning Isn't Easy. In this episode, we'll dive into the complicated topic of "Living Well With POTS: A Conversation With Nutritionist and Advocate Jill Brook."
Most people hear POTS or dysautonomia and assume they’re rare, poorly understood conditions with few treatment options. For patients living with them, however, the reality is far more complex - and deeply shaped by lived experience, nutrition, and daily management. In this episode, we examine POTS and dysautonomia through the lens of nutrition. Our guest is Jill Brook, MA, a nutritionist, researcher, and long-time advocate in the dysautonomia community. After a 17-year delay in receiving her own diagnosis, Jill transformed that experience into a mission to improve awareness and care. She is co-founder of PatientsCount.org, a former nutrition consultant to Dysautonomia Clinic, and host of The POTScast. We begin with Jill’s personal journey into the POTS community and the lessons learned from years of missed diagnosis. We then explore how nutrition (often overlooked) can play a meaningful role in managing symptoms. Finally, we discuss practical strategies for living well with POTS, from navigating healthcare systems to adapting daily routines. By the end of the episode, you’ll have a clearer understanding of POTS and dysautonomia - and why experience, nutrition, and thoughtful management are essential to better care.
In this episode, we'll cover the following topics:
One - Understanding POTS and Jill’s Journey
Two - Nutrition and Managing POTS
Three - Strategies for Living Well with POTS
Whether you're a claimant, or simply seeking valuable insights into the disability claims landscape, this episode provides essential guidance to help you succeed in your journey. Don't miss it.
Listen to Our Sister Podcast:
We have a sister podcast - Winning Isn't Easy: Navigating Your Social Security Disability Claim. Give it a listen: https://wiessdpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
LINK TO ROBBED OF YOUR PEACE OF MIND: https://mailchi.mp/caveylaw/ltd-robbed-of-your-piece-of-mind
LINK TO THE DISABILITY INSURANCE CLAIM SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR PROFESSIONALS: https://mailchi.mp/caveylaw/professionals-guide-to-ltd-benefits
FREE CONSULT LINK: https://caveylaw.com/contact-us/
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Need help with your Long-Term Disability or ERISA claim? Have questions? Please feel welcome to reach out to use for a FREE consultation. Just mention you listened to our podcast.
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Please remember that the content shared is for informational purposes only, and should not replace personalized legal advice or guidance from qualified professionals.
Nancy Cavey [00:00:14]:
Hey, I'm Nancy KV national risk and individual disability attorney. Welcome to this episode of Winning Isn't Easy. Now before we get started, I have to tell you that this podcast is not legal advice. The Florida Bar association says I have to tell you that. And now that I've told you that, I want to let you know that nothing will give you. Prevent me rather from giving you an easy to understand overview of the disability insurance world, the games that disability carriers play, and what you need to know to get the disability benefits you deserve. So let's get started. I have a special guest today.
Nancy Cavey [00:00:51]:
We're going to be talking about POTS and Dysautonomia through the lens of nutrition and how nutrition can impact a person's not only functioning, but impact a person's disability claim. So my guest today is Jill Brooke. She has a master's and she is a nutritionist, researcher and a long term advocate in the Dysautonomia community. After her own 17 year old misjourney, if you will, in the diagnostic process, Jill became passionate about approving the awareness for POTS and Dysautonomia and she's the co founder of patients, I'm sorry, patientscount.org nutrition consultant to dysautonomia Clinic and she is the host of potscast. So welcome today to Jill.
Jill Brook [00:01:41]:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's good to be here. And I should say that I've recently retired from nutrition, so I'm no longer the nutrition consultant to Dysautonomia Clinic, but I was for five years and now I'm full time in all that volunteer stuff.
Nancy Cavey [00:01:55]:
Good. Well, we're going to talk about three things today. The first is we're going to talk about understanding POTS and Jill's journey. Secondly, we're still going to sort of test her knowledge about nutrition and managing pots, not only as a nutritionist but as a person who is living it. And then three, we want to talk about strategies for living well with pots. So before we get started, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll welcome Jill and get started on Jill's journey.
Speaker C [00:02:26]:
Have you been robbed of your peace of mind by your disability insurance carrier? You owe it to yourself to get a copy of Robbed of your peace of Mind which provides you with everything you need to know about the long term disability claims process. Request your free copy of the book@kvlaw.com today.
Nancy Cavey [00:03:04]:
Welcome back to Winning Isn't Easy. We're going to talk about understanding what POTS Is. And we're going to talk about Jill and her journey in the POTS world. Now, as a disability attorney and as a Social Security attorney, I know that getting the disability benefits you deserve can be very difficult. And one of the first difficulties people experience along this road is finding a doctor and finding a doctor who understands what POTS is and finding a doctor who understands treatment options, including the impact of nutrition. So, Jill, you've been on that journey. Could you tell us about that journey and what POTS is and how it showed up in your life and ultimately getting your diagnosis?
Jill Brook [00:03:51]:
Yeah, sure thing. So for anybody who doesn't know, POTS is a chronic, invisible illness that makes it difficult to be upright because your brain is just not getting enough circulation. So you get tachycardia, your heart is beating hard and fast trying to get the blood up there against gravity. And you can have all kinds of symptoms that have to do with your head just not getting enough blood. So things like dizziness and brain fog and headaches and visual disturbance and all manner of things. And then you can have chest pain and heart palpitations. Some people get really high adrenaline from it because, again, the brain thinks there's an emergency. So then that can have its own host of side effects, and your digestion can get too fast or too slow or sometimes some of each.
Jill Brook [00:04:39]:
And so kind of the chronic hallmark of POTS is there's just a lot of symptoms. Most of them are invisible. And there's not that much awareness about pots, and especially when I was starting on my journey. So when I was about 17, I started having symptoms, getting dizzy, feeling like all the blood was, you know, sinking into my feet, none in my head. And I would tell doctors this, but it didn't really make any sense to them, you know, because they hadn't heard of pots. When I was in graduate school, I stopped being able to hold my head up. I'd kind of deflate and pass out. And so back then, because nobody had really heard of pots, you know, they said, gosh, you must just be really bored.
Jill Brook [00:05:25]:
You did a bad job picking PhD programs. You must not really be interested in this. You better go to the career center and go take their tests and find out what you really want to do with your life. And, you know, so I believed them. Like many, many POTS patients, I did believe that I was just inventing this in my head and that there was nothing wrong with me. And, you know, I think the research bears out that somewhere above 60% of patients do get either a psych diagnosis or some inaccurate diagnosis about what POTS is in the beginning. So I wish I had seen the Nancy KV podcast in time. But for me, it took 17 years to get a diagnosis because just nobody knew what was going on.
Jill Brook [00:06:12]:
In the end, it was Dr. Google that helped me figure it out, and I referred myself to a doctor who confirmed it. It turns out that the actual test to confirm it is actually pretty quick. They look at your heart rate when you're lying down and your heart rate when you're upright, and if your heart goes crazy and a few other things, they can diagnose it pretty quickly. But it was not quick for me. So that is what led me to nutrition. Nutrition was that passion that I went to when I decided that I must be too bored to stick with a PhD program for statistics and method research methodology. And so it took another three years to find medications that helped.
Jill Brook [00:06:56]:
Took another two years of fighting my insurance company to keep those medications. And so that's where I am today, where, you know, kind of just fighting to hopefully make it easier for other people coming along. Because my, my situation might have been a little longer than usual, but a lot of people still encounter a lot of those same challenges.
Nancy Cavey [00:07:14]:
Well, you're a trailblazer, and we're all very sorry that you've had to go through this. Before COVID I actually handled POTS cases on a regular basis. I sort of became known as the POTS attorney. But then after long Covid, there has been an increase in people who have developed pots. Ehlers Danlos mast cell syndrome. And I think, unfortunately, with the COVID epidemic, has actually become an awareness among physicians about pots. And now we have centers of excellence and physicians who specialize in pots. But you've been the pioneer, if you will, wandering around in the medical wilderness until you actually had that tilt table test that confirmed that you had pots.
Nancy Cavey [00:08:01]:
But, you know, POTS obviously ultimately shaped your degree because you got a degree in nutrition. But let me ask you, how has your experience with POTS shaped your passion for awareness and advocacy on behalf of POTS patients?
Jill Brook [00:08:21]:
You know, it makes me just realize how important it is. Even if you don't get a treatment that cures you or even helps you that much, just understanding what's wrong with you and knowing that you're not inventing it in your own head can make such a difference to your self esteem and your self confidence and, you know, your sense of whether you're even perceiving the world, you know, as it is. And so it really is huge. And I know there's many, many patients who, even if they just find A doctor who believes them and diagnoses them and listens, that is enough. They're happy with that.
Nancy Cavey [00:08:58]:
Right? Well, Amita is obviously not all in their head, as people have been told for years and years. Fortunately, one of the first POTS cases I had was of an emergency room doctor. So. And he was treating with Dr. Grubbs in Toledo. And so, I mean, it's really hard for a doctor to blow off another doctor. And, you know, this physician had actually done a lot of research on pots he found to Dr. Dr.
Nancy Cavey [00:09:27]:
Grubb. But even with that, he was, you know, he went on that journey by himself. You know, he had the skills and knowledge as a physician, but even that journey was very lonely and difficult for him. I can only imagine what it was for you. So thank you for sharing that story. I want to take a break and I want to come back and really talk about your expertise, and that's nutrition and managing pots. So we're going to take a quick break and we're going to come up back and learn more about nutrition. Welcome back to Winning Isn't Easy.
Nancy Cavey [00:10:17]:
I have my special guest, Jill Brook, who is a nutritionist, but she has been on this POTS journey for many, many years, even before POTS was even well recognized and diagnosable, if you will, by physicians. So I want to talk with you about your area of expertise, which is nutrition. Now, can you please tell me how you bring your background as a nutritionist into your work with the POTS community?
Jill Brook [00:10:44]:
Sure, sure. So for five years, I was the nutrition consultant to the Dysautonomia Clinic. So that was working one on one with individuals, trying to help them find their best routine to manage. Well, giving presentations at various conferences or to various groups and participating in some of the research. You know, POTS doesn't have a lot of research funding, but we try to scrape together and do what little studies we can to figure out what helps patients feel better. And if we're hearing something that a lot of patients are talking about is helping, we try to put a little bit of research structure around it to try to quantify and find any little thing that helps.
Nancy Cavey [00:11:23]:
So how did nutrition play a role in your own POTS journey?
Jill Brook [00:11:28]:
Well, I wish I could say, oh, my POTS wasn't that bad because my nutrition was so good. No, I think I proved that you can be really, really dedicated to your nutrition and still have a pretty rotten time with pots. It can still. It can still get you. I mean, I tried everything. I probably wasted a few years thinking, like, oh, I just have B vitamin deficiencies you know, trying to think that I could fix it with nutrition. So I'm here to tell you, if, if you can, my hat is off to you. I could not.
Jill Brook [00:11:57]:
That said, I probably did myself some favors. You know, I always, I always am surprised by how, you know, in my, my career before getting into the POTS community, I worked with just like a lot of really healthy, fit, high achieving people who just wanted to be their very best. And even they feel terrible when their, you know, blood sugar is unstable or when they've got dysbiosis or nutrient deficiency. So at least we can say, you know, if you're going to have a chronic disabling condition at have only that and not nutrition problems on top of it.
Nancy Cavey [00:12:31]:
Well, you know, I follow along with the research and follow on a number of support sites, and one of the things I always hear and see is the discussion about salt and fluid intake and how important that is. Can you explain why that's important and, you know, how one tries to manage that?
Jill Brook [00:12:54]:
Sure, yeah. So if we kind of get back to the core problem in pots, which is not enough blood reaching the brain, there can be a number of underlying reasons why that happens, but one of them that is pretty common is low blood volume. And so it looks like about 70% of POTS patients just don't make enough blood. And they might be anywhere from 10 to 25% short on blood. And you wouldn't think it would make that big of a difference. But according to the researchers, that, you know, does constitute a pretty significant shortage of blood volume. And so consuming extra fault, extra salt and fluids is one of the quickest, easiest ways that you can temporarily boost blood volume and get a little bit more blood to your head. So it doesn't help everybody.
Jill Brook [00:13:43]:
Some people, it helps them a whole lot. Some people a little. I like to say it's the only perk of having POTS is getting to enjoy that little bit of extra salt.
Nancy Cavey [00:13:53]:
Well, so I think a lot of people confuse salt and fluid intake with dehydration. To me, they're not the same. Am I correct? And how does that play into this? I mean, it's one thing to drink a lot of Gatorade versus, you know, salt and fluid intake on a regular basis. So can you delve into that for me, please?
Jill Brook [00:14:15]:
Yeah. So what appears to be happening in POTS patients is that the kidneys are kind of misbehaving and they are flushing, flushing out too much sodium. When the kidneys detect low blood volume, they're supposed to start recycling sodium instead of throwing it out. But in pots, for whatever reason, they seem to just keep throwing it out, those mischievous little kidneys. And the fluids always follow the salt. So when you throw out salt, you're also throwing out fluids. And so it's kind of a chronic problem where the POTSY body is just always throwing it out. So the idea is to try to replace that by consuming.
Jill Brook [00:14:56]:
And I should just say that not every POTS patient has this. And there are POTS patients who have high blood pressure. So ideally, you get a, you know, customized suggestion from your physician. But for a lot of people, the salt is kind of their. Their key to feeling better. The other thing is it works pretty quickly, which is nice. And so you see a lot of just funny t shirts about, you know, all I need are naps, salt, and Jesus. Or, you know, I run on salt and fluids.
Jill Brook [00:15:27]:
Willpower. And, you know, salt is kind of the. The hallmark thing that will make a POTSI feel better when they're on the floor, can't get up, no energy.
Nancy Cavey [00:15:36]:
So how does the emphasis on salt and hydration affect the overall nutrition and meal planning generally?
Jill Brook [00:15:45]:
So kind of the number one rule in POTS and dysautonomia nutrition is that everybody is so different that we don't give any sort of just across the board recommendations. And it's because there can be so many different symptoms and so many different underlying reasons for the pots. Some people might have it because of autoimmunity. Somebody else might have it because of a brain injury or a virus. There's a lot of comorbid conditions. There's a lot of different disabling symptoms. Some people, their problem is they can't get to the grocery store. Other people, they have trouble just sitting up to eat, or they have trouble with digestion.
Jill Brook [00:16:23]:
So I just put that out there as to say, you know, why are you being vague? Why are you not just telling us what to eat? It's because everybody's so, so different. But that said, there seems to be, you know, some. Some consensus that a lot of patients feel better when they eat smaller, more frequent meals. Because when you eat a whole lot of food at once, it sends blood to your stomach, and that's blood that's now not going to your head. Eating low glycemic or lower carbohydrate meals also can help because that causes less blood pool, or carbohydrates cause more blood pooling than proteins and fats. Avoiding gluten is helpful for some patients. Avoiding alcohol is helpful for most patients. Avoiding nutrient deficiencies is obviously something that's good for everybody.
Jill Brook [00:17:16]:
So the salt in the fluids is kind of like just a little sprinkling on top of whatever else is working for you. And, you know, we have a lot of patients who are on autoimmune diets or they're on the low fodmap diet because they have, like, IBS type symptoms, or they might be on a low histamine diet for mast cell activation syndrome. And so the POTS is, the salt is kind of the one thing that tends to be consistent when everything else can just be all over the place and individualized to the patient.
Nancy Cavey [00:17:47]:
So can you please explain to me, do physicians regularly recommend that a nutritionist be part of a person's treatment program? And if so, how does one find a nutritionist such as yourself?
Jill Brook [00:18:03]:
Yeah, I don't know if they do, but they should. And especially any POTS patient or family of a POTS patient who has it severe enough that they're thinking about disability benefits probably should have a whole team. And again, it comes back to that. There can be so much complexity here, right? Like, if a person has a hard time even just standing up at the checkout line at the grocery store or swallowing or, you know, there can be so many different issues that you might just want to ask your doctor, your primary care physician for a team. So get referrals to a registered dietitian, maybe a GI doctor. You know, over half of POTS patients have gut motility that is either too far fast or too slow, that can cause different problems or pain or a lot of just different issues. I think a lot of doctors and patients are not that aware of occupational therapists, but they can be really helpful as well. And you can get a.
Jill Brook [00:19:02]:
You can get a referral to them, too, but they can help with a lot of the logistical challenges. So, for example, if you need someone to train you how to use the little cart at the grocery store so that you don't have to stand up, they can go and help you learn how to do that. If you need your kitchen to be set up in such a way that you kind of minimize the amount of moving and effort and energy you expend, they can help you do that. They can help you find recipes or kitchen gadgets that can help you really conserve energy and conserve time, you know, kind of whatever your logistical issues are with your everyday activities, they really are kind of the heroes. And one little secret. You know, you were saying that it's. It's really hard to find a doctor. I would say if you are having trouble finding a doctor, in your area who understands POTS and believes how serious it is, then maybe even just start with the dietitians or the occupational therapists, because in my experience, they are way more understanding about POTs than the physicians even are.
Jill Brook [00:20:05]:
They are more likely to have heard of it. They're more likely to have spent hours in the home of a patient like that or spent time with them and really get it. And then they tend to know who the doctors are. Ask them for a recommendation of who the local doctor is that you should go see.
Nancy Cavey [00:20:23]:
Well, of course, as we all know, the Dysautonomia International site has a list of physicians across the world, so that also is an option. But I've never seen the nutritionist, the occupational therapist as part of that list. So that's a fantastic suggestion. So before we continue with this discussion with Jill, we're going to take a quick break.
Jill Brook [00:20:43]:
Okay.
Speaker C [00:20:47]:
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Nancy Cavey [00:21:40]:
Welcome back to Winnie Isn't Easy. We're here with my special guest, Jill Brook, and I want to ask you, what are strategies for living well with pots? So first question would be, you know, what are some of your favorite practical tips for healthy meals that work well with people with pots?
Jill Brook [00:21:58]:
Yeah, I think the number one and two things I'd say are figure out how you're going to get really quick, easy meals for when you don't have the energy to go to the grocery store or cook or things like that. So one thing is to consider frozen options. I'm a big fan. When you have time and you're actually feeling good, go spend like 20 minutes in the frozen aisle of your grocery store and just see what all of the choices are. Maybe buy one of a few different things. Try them. Because POTS patients are famous for having their flares come out of nowhere. Like, we always have to cancel plans.
Jill Brook [00:22:34]:
We don't want to. And so canceling dinner plans goes along with that. Right. Like, so the thinking is that, you know, if a POTS patient has good energy long enough to go grocery shopping and then make a recipe and then eat and digest, that would kind of be a miracle, Right? Like one of those Things is going to go wrong. So having kind of emergency foods at the ready is a great thing. And that's something that you should, I think, work with a dietitian to talk about. And, you know, a lot of times if you work with a dietitian and you just say, hi, I'm here to work with you, they will kind of have their agenda and their things that they go to. But if you come to them with, here's what I need.
Jill Brook [00:23:11]:
I need meals for when I'm too tired to stand up. I need meals for when I, you know, I need snacks at my bed stand for when I'm too tired to even get out of my bed. I need things to put in my, you know, locker or my gym bag or my car. You know, think of all of the places where you're likely to maybe have a little bit of a potsy issue, where maybe you are too dizzy or too tired or your blood sugar gets too low, whatever your little danger zones are, maybe make a list of those and take them to that dietitian so that you can help figure out what they're going to be. And then try to have the right foods in the right places so that you can anticipate where you're going to have a little bit of an issue. On my podcast, I always ask a joke question, which is like, where's the funniest place you've ever had to sit down or lay down because of pots? But it's not really that funny when it happens to you in a place where you're not prepared and you don't have some salt and fluids with you because you really can get stuck somewhere. And so thinking ahead about that is really important. The other thing about frozen meals, besides just being quick, is that it can save a lot of money because we know that like 30 to 40% of groceries go to waste because they just don't get used or cooked.
Jill Brook [00:24:35]:
And so with somebody who's likely to have a lot of times when they're not feeling that great, it's a shame to just waste all that money. So frozen foods can be one way to do it. You might also try just Googling to see if in your area there is a company such as Imperfect Foods or Misfits Market or other ones where their kind of value proposition is that they deliver foods at a discount because those foods are just, like, cosmetically flawed. So, for example, you can get a lot of nice produce delivered to you every week at a discount because, you know, maybe the apples have spots on them and so the grocery store didn't want them. And so, you know, basically, anything that gets you groceries delivered can be a huge, huge help, because I think patients know this. But for family members, the grocery store can be one of the toughest place for places for POTS patients, because not only is it a lot of standing up, but the lights, there's something about the lighting in those big box stores that can be almost like kryptonite to a lot of patients. And so if you can either find a service or a friend or something that makes you not have to go to the grocery store so often, that's a lot of extra energy, potentially, and upright mojo that you can spend on other things.
Nancy Cavey [00:26:07]:
As a parent, family dinners were very important to us, and that was something that we tried to maintain, and that certainly can be difficult with POTS patients. Do you have any suggestions as to how the family can make shared meals and make them easier and be more supportive of the parent with pots?
Jill Brook [00:26:28]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think this kind of is sort of their version of needing those emergency meals, because I know that every family with a participation in it also is probably, you know, oftentimes busy or dealing with crises or challenges. And so one of the things that's kind of shown to make just meal time generally easier and healthier is getting into routines. And so, you know, there's an inevitable trial and error period where you try to figure out what works for you. But once you find things that work for you, that everybody likes, that are nutritious enough and easy enough and in your budget, that thinking in routines can really be helpful. And the way that routines get cemented faster is when you do the same thing in the same order at the same time in the same place every week. And that's when everything just gets on autopilot.
Jill Brook [00:27:20]:
You know, like, we didn't think about how much work it was to get dressed and brush our teeth this morning, because have done it the same way, the same, you know, so many times. So if so meals that are likely to get on that, they call them formulaic meals, so that you can maximize the variety of foods you eat, but minimize the different kind of stuff you have to do. So an example of a formulaic meal would be like a stir fry, where it's one vegetable plus one meat plus one sauce plus one grain. And you could eat stir fry every Monday to the end of time and not eat the exact same thing, but you're always using the same pan, the same utensils, the same behaviors, the same. Right. So that's kind of what the experts would say if you want to kind of get it to a place where you're minimizing the amount of effort. Other examples of formulaic meals would be things like soups or stews or salads or sandwiches or sheet pan baked, where every night, same thing, you just pick a different food from each category, but do your same old routine and before long, you're ideally just doing it without even thinking.
Nancy Cavey [00:28:35]:
Cool. So what's one thing you wish everyone understood about living with pots? Not only from, you know, like, your journey where no one really knew what you had and. And everyone tried to convince you that you really weren't sick and now you have a disease that's recognized as being real. So in your journey, can you tell us what's the one thing you wish every person understood living with pots?
Jill Brook [00:29:06]:
That it affects the whole body and there's a lot of complex pieces to it that just mean that the average POTS patient has a lot going on and they probably have more going on than they're letting on and that they're probably doing their best and they don't mean to cancel plans and they don't mean to be difficult. But it is a complex multi systemic disease that has a lot of pieces to it.
Nancy Cavey [00:29:34]:
Can you tell us about your podcast and how, what it offers to to the POTS community?
Jill Brook [00:29:40]:
Sure, sure. My podcast is the potscast and we are the podcast of the nonprofit Standing up to pots. We raise money for POTS research and our podcast is once a week. We have several different kinds of episodes. We have the Patient Diaries episodes where we interview patients about their experiences. We have the POTS Practitioners episodes where we interview doctors and other practitioners who treat patients. We have the POTS Matters series, which is other professionals like you who come and talk to us about other important things about living with pots. And then we also have mast cell Matters because so many of the patients also have mast cell activation syndrome that we bring in experts.
Jill Brook [00:30:25]:
And that is guest hosted by Dr. Tanya Dempsey, one of the world's very top mast cell experts. So we're proud to just, just try to bring the best, latest, greatest information for patients.
Nancy Cavey [00:30:36]:
Well, that's really cool because I tried a Social Security case this week with pots, Ellers, Danlos and mast cell. And one of the first questions out of the judge's mouth was, well, Ms. KV, where's the lab work? Where's the biopsy? It's like, okay, all right. And off we went. We won the case because it was a positive tilt table test, but the judge was not so much impressed with the mast cell diagnosis. So I feel like we're on the same journey with mast cell as we were back with fibromyalgia and then Covid and then pots. So for those people who have mast cell syndrome, there is someone like Jill who has been on a journey that's probably very similar to what it is you're going through. Anything else you'd like our audience to know about your journey, POTS nutrition that you think would make a difference today in their lives?
Jill Brook [00:31:34]:
I would say just that it's not rare. You probably know more people with it than you think. And if you want to learn any more information, standinguptopots.org is a huge website built by experts and people is a big labor of love that has basically every bit of helpful information that we can think to add, and we're hoping to add your information to it as well so that that will be there too, because I think the one thing that was missing from was the information on the disability benefits.
Nancy Cavey [00:32:03]:
Well, thank you. And I wanted to thank everybody who has shared their POTS journey with me, allowing me to represent them and people like you who provide such great information and support to the POTS community. So that's a wrap for today's episode. If you found this episode helpful, please take a moment to like the episode, give us a shout out and of course, subscribe to the website. We look forward to talking with you next week in our next episode of Winning Isn't Easy. Thanks.