AI Edits from 287-SYNCPodcast_StephanieBerman

[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the sync your life podcast today. I have with me Stephanie Berman for more than 13 years. She suffered with multiple gynecologic pain generators, 11 medical doctors from naturopaths to general practitioners and beyond were unable to provide many answers, much less relief.

[00:01:15] Jenny Swisher: That all changed when she met Dr. Cory Bob at the, at the Haven center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She’s now feeling better. She’s here to share a little bit of her story. And I told her that even almost 300 episodes into this podcast, we have yet to touch on the topic of gynecologic pain. So as a women’s hormone health podcast, it’s almost shameful because this is actually affecting so many more women than you realize.

[00:01:36] Jenny Swisher: So she started something called the Aziza Project, which we’ll be talking about, especially toward the end of the podcast. And she wants to offer other women the same hope by connecting them with medical professionals that can truly help them. So anyway, so we’re going to get to all that, but Stephanie, thank you so much for taking time to meet with us, to share your story.

[00:01:50] Jenny Swisher: I would love for you to share with us, you know, how did you get to this point? Like, why are you here? What’s your story?

[00:01:56] Stephanie Berman: Oh, I forgot to bring Kleenex. Well, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. How did we get to this point? It’s been a journey. You know, you mentioned in my bio or intro, whatever you want to call it.

[00:02:08] Stephanie Berman: That. I had seen so many providers and that’s exactly what happened. Like my symptoms started back in, well, they’re all over the place. You know, growing up, I had painful periods, you know, my mom took me to the doctor, they said, Oh, all we can do for her is put her on the pill. My mom wasn’t interested in that.

[00:02:28] Stephanie Berman: So we basically did nothing until. I got married in 2007 and, continued to have painful periods, you know, I distinctly remember there was at least a couple times where I either had to call out of work or, you know, go home from a volunteer position due to pain. It didn’t affect my life drastically like I’ve heard other stories, but it was enough that it was.

[00:02:54] Stephanie Berman: That by 2018, it had become, you know, a monthly thing where I’m like, I don’t know if I can work today. I was teaching piano at the time. So I luckily had some control over my schedule, but I looked at my husband and I said, Hey, if we don’t figure this out and get this taken care of, I’m not going to be able to get out of bed, for multiple days each month.

[00:03:12] Stephanie Berman: And he’s like, then just do what you need to do to get taken care of. I’m like, okay. So that was kind of step one going back a couple of years previous to that. And that was, so that was one pelvic pain generator, was these painful periods. Then, pelvic pain generator number two, was some vulvar, like, skin type symptoms that kicked off in 2011, I believe?

[00:03:35] Stephanie Berman: And, I don’t know about, That’s that’s the one that I went to all of those doctors to try to figure out what was going on. I even saw a dermatologist, which came later, I was still experiencing these symptoms when I went in to have my hysterectomy, and endometriosis excision, and the physician’s assistant for my surgeon said, Hey, maybe it’s like in sclerosis, and I was like, Okay, I’ve been kind of wondering the same thing.

[00:03:59] Stephanie Berman: She said, Go and find a dermatologist at home and see if. They can figure it out. So, I did, and that dermatologist gaslit me, put me on medications I shouldn’t have been on, didn’t do the gold standard diagnostic test, which is a vulvar biopsy, but through that experience of getting gaslit by that specific provider, that led me to Instagram.

[00:04:27] Stephanie Berman: Where I found, the head of the top layperson social media influencer for lichen sclerosis and she was actually interviewing Dr. Babb back in the early days of Instagram Live or whatever it was then, And I saw him and heard what he had to say, jumped over to his profile, started looking at all his posts, and I’m like, This guy knows a ton about female pelvic anatomy.

[00:04:51] Stephanie Berman: I wonder if there’s any way he can help me. And he’s in Oklahoma. I’m in southeastern Washington state. And I reached out to him. I’m like, very briefly, this is my story. This is kind of what’s going on. He’s like, hey, I’m opening my own clinic in October. Feel free to reach out to me and get there and schedule a consultation so we’ll be ready.

[00:05:12] Stephanie Berman: And that’s what I did. October 13th of 2022, I had my consultation with Dr. Babb and that was the best doctor appointment I had had up to that point, bar none. And that was all virtual. And so he didn’t even touch me. Didn’t do an exam, nothing. He just listened to me talk, listened to my husband talk, paid attention to what my husband said and took him at his word, which was just an amazing experience for both of us.

[00:05:38] Stephanie Berman: And then we did fly to Tulsa in January of 2023 to see him where he diagnosed me with an irritated nerve in my pelvis, spasm pelvic floor muscles. I thought there was one other thing we discovered on that trip. No, it’s failing me. But those were the big two on that trip. And then we went back, we did a diagnostic nerve block, which is how we figured out the spasm nerve.

[00:05:55] Stephanie Berman: We did pelvic floor Botox. And then Went back in October and did a steroid block and more Botox and then we went back to April of 2024. We went back and did a full of our biopsy and discovered. No, it’s not like it’s sclerosis. It’s a topic dermatitis. So there I am with battling vulvar atopic dermatitis and my pelvic floor, because I’m dealing with so much pain and my body’s used to being in pain, my pelvic floor has not gotten to the point of realizing, oh, I don’t have to be spasmed all the time.

[00:06:31] Stephanie Berman: So we’re going back to Tulsa next week for round four.

[00:06:36] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I’d say, man, you’ve got a story here. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So you’re still in it. You’re still in this story.

[00:06:41] Stephanie Berman: Yeah. Yeah. We’re going back to Tulsa in like five

[00:06:45] Jenny Swisher: days. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I’m going to pause you there because I’m like, oh, you’re like, wait, these are all things I want to touch on.

[00:06:45] Jenny Swisher: So the first thing I want to say is, I don’t know if you happen to know a percentage, but I know that there is a significant percentage of women who are suffering from vulvar pain. And this is something that I didn’t realize until I started sitting in on telehealth consults. We offer telehealth consults through my program with Dr.

[00:07:02] Jenny Swisher: Page. And so many women would bring up not just painful sex because that gets brought up often brought up often, but also other issues to like well I have pain otherwise to write and it’s like, you know, like, I just, and so I hear I say this often, you know, women. Our societal culture, we don’t talk about our periods.

[00:07:22] Jenny Swisher: We don’t talk about our menstrual cycle. I mean, we’re starting to it’s just that we don’t talk about. And I think that 1st of all, thank you for your vulnerability and sharing the story because I think someone listening to this is going to say, oh, like, I always thought it was just me. Right? And how many of us we can all raise our hand.

[00:07:34] Jenny Swisher: Like, all of us have had an experience where we thought it was just us. For me, I thought every woman got headaches around her period. I thought every woman had painful periods until I just shared this recently in a keynote. I was like, I went through 168 painful periods before any doctor ever said endometriosis to me.

[00:07:49] Jenny Swisher: It takes the average woman five to six doctors before she gets a PCOS or endometriosis diagnosis. So that’s what’s happening in our world. And you mentioned some, I wrote down all these things you were saying, right? Like about gaslighting and, and all these different things that you’re sort of learning in your process.

[00:08:02] Jenny Swisher: Like, I just hate that this is so many women’s stories. I hate this because. We’re literally just we feel like it’s us. We feel like we’re the problem. And when we finally step into, I’ve got to figure this out. I’m going to lose my mind, right? It’s then you’re just beginning the journey that really has already started.

[00:08:19] Jenny Swisher: But you’re like, now I have to find the right doctor. I have to find the right person to listen to me. So some key highlights that I want to mention that you’ve mentioned here is this idea of gaslighting this, this. You know, I see it often with women dealing with like depressive symptoms or anxiety and perimenopause and their doctor wants to put them on antidepressants.

[00:08:39] Jenny Swisher: Right now, the statistics say 54 percent of women in perimenopause are offered antidepressants, but only 3 percent are offered HRT. Is awful, right? So let’s just let’s just lay that out there. So when you said, you know that this doctor you felt heard, and your husband was there and he listened to what he had to say to you finally get a diagnosis like you finally start working in the right direction like this can be so much of the battle for so many women, regardless of whether they’re dealing with gynecologic pain or migraines or infertility or whatever, like, Getting to the point where you are working in a good relationship with a practitioner who listens to you and who, who believes you, I mean, I hate to say that, but that’s so true, and who also meets you where you are and says, what are your health values?

[00:09:21] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. You want to go pharmaceutical? Do you want to go natural? Like, I love that. Like, that’s why, I mean, I love our resident hormone health doctor, but I also just love that you found somebody that’s in your corner because I really have found that that’s half the battle. So I was making so many notes. I was like, I got to pause her right here.

[00:09:36] Jenny Swisher: So you’re still in this story. And so my question, one of my questions for you, and I’m just going to kind of cut to it is if a woman is listening to this. And maybe she’s like, Oh, I didn’t realize this was a thing, right? Like maybe this, this isn’t just me. What would you tell her about starting this journey in vulvar pain?

[00:09:53] Stephanie Berman: I would say, first of all, find doctors who use trauma informed care practices in their clinics. That’s been a game changer for me. I now have Dr. Pab in Oklahoma. He does that and, my primary care at home does that too and I’ll just throw an extra chip, on that. Sometimes it can be difficult to find a doctor.

[00:10:18] Stephanie Berman: Like, how do I find a doctor? But I was like, you know who would, you know who has this training or would be more likely to go after that training would be doctors who deal with neurodivergent and LGBTQ type patients. And so that’s what I did. I went to my I went to the All About the Tri Cities Facebook group, my local area Facebook group, and I said, hey, who, who do you recommend for primary care for neurodivergent patients?

[00:10:41] Stephanie Berman: Like who, who works well with them? And so my, my current primary care’s name popped up. I’m like, great. We’ll go see her. And I mean, I still feel like I have some personality differences with her. So it doesn’t feel like every, every appointment is as smooth as I would like. But I do feel heard and I do feel like she’s trying to help me to the best of her ability.

[00:11:05] Stephanie Berman: So, so that would be where I would start looking there. I would say follow Dr. Bab on Instagram and I will make sure that you have his Instagram handle to throw in the show notes. And Just see what he has to say, and he will sometimes, you know, talk about other doctors around the country who he’s worked with in the past and stuff like that.

[00:11:24] Stephanie Berman: So, you know, there are a couple other doctors out there who are doing similar things. So if you’re living on the East Coast and you’re not sure you want to go all the way to Tulsa, you might be able to find somebody out there. But to be honest, there’s not that many doctors that are doing what he’s doing and listening in the way he’s listening and he really is the best.

[00:11:45] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, yeah. And the truth is that the way modern medicine is right now is everybody has a specialty. And so when you’re dealing with something like this, like, You know, I’m always a huge advocate of functional medicine, but when it’s a very specific issue, finding somebody who dedicates their life and resources to, to that particular issue is hugely helpful.

[00:11:59] Jenny Swisher: Right.

[00:11:59] Stephanie Berman: Yeah.

[00:11:59] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I love that. I love that you just started this off with saying, you know, find someone that’s trauma informed. And so I want to pause there. I’m going to ask you this question. You can answer it to whatever degree of comfort you want to, but what role has trauma played in this for you?

[00:12:16] Stephanie Berman: Well, I’ll just say that my medical history goes all the way back to my birth, and it’s been pretty traumatic. I spent three days. Separated from my, well, actually more than a week Four days? Four days. It was four days. Your poor husband. It was four days. I spent four days separated from my mother after I was born.

[00:12:29] Stephanie Berman: Because I was born in a third world country. I was critically ill. My dad and I had to fly back when I was three days old. My mom couldn’t fly for a week after my birth because she had a c section. And so, the medical system has always been kind of traumatic for me. So, like, and I would say, like, we had an experience with the, the head of the Volvar Pain Clinic at the University of Washington in Seattle, didn’t really do much of an exam on me, basically looked at my husband and said, be gentle, and sent us straight back out the door.

[00:12:58] Stephanie Berman: That’s all I remember from that appointment. You know, there were, There was a, I don’t even know what her title would be, like a pain coach almost, that one, physical therapist wanted me to see, and she basically said, well, at some point, you’re just going to have to accept that your pain is all in your head.

[00:13:14] Stephanie Berman: And then this dermatologist that she had told me try these medications, you’ll fail them, then we can get you on this biologic medication that should work. And she didn’t tell me to continue the failed medications while I was on the biologic, so I, I stopped them like I think any reasonable patient would have, if they hadn’t been specifically told to continue them.

[00:13:40] Stephanie Berman: And so I went back. like six months into this using this biologic medication and she found out that I’d stopped using the topical medications and she basically started yelling at me and that was the end of that but I never went back at that point and I’ve been extremely careful and choosy about my providers ever since.

[00:14:02] Stephanie Berman: I’ve fired now two primary care doctors since then. And now I’ve found this one that I’m working with now, that I’ve, like I said, I’ve had some issues with, but I think, I think we’ll figure each other out if we work together long enough. And I think she means well, which is, which is helpful.

[00:14:21] Stephanie Berman: Can be harmful. I will say that somebody can mean well and be harmful, but they can also mean well and be helpful. Yeah, that’s,

[00:14:29] Jenny Swisher: that’s so good to say that. And so I, first of all, I want to welcome you to the fire doctors association. So I’m in that too. I teach a lot of women, to fire their doctors. In fact, I just told someone yesterday, I’m like, I need one of those, like, like giffies on social media of just a person holding a thing that says wrong doctor, wrong doctor, all over my social media right now are people who are like, okay, does anyone know?

[00:14:52] Jenny Swisher: Cause my doctor says my labs are normal. And I want that little giffy to be like, wrong doctor, wrong doctor, right? Like, and I’m not here to like, you guys know this, my listeners know this. I’m not here to shame doctors. In fact. Modern medicine saved my dad’s life. I say that often. I have a huge, like Dr.

[00:15:06] Jenny Swisher: Page and I are good friends. I’ve interviewed 50 plus doctors here on the podcast, but it’s a red flag when you start to eat well, number one, here’s what I’ll say. A lot of doctors. They are knowledgeable and they are smart and they had have the school, they have had the schooling and they have the credentials, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the expert on your body.

[00:15:25] Jenny Swisher: And so when you are in a position where the doctor is positioning themselves on as the expert on your body, it’s probably the wrong doctor. Number two, the other thing I’ll say is a lot of doctors because of that schooling and because of that, I’ll say ego for lack of better terms, they don’t want to admit when they don’t know something.

[00:15:43] Jenny Swisher: So a lot of times, instead of saying, I don’t know, but let me see if I can find a resource for you. That’s when we find doctors handing out birth control, like it’s candy or, you know, giving you a bandaid for something that they just don’t know about. And so this is why I’m such a huge fan of what I call hormone literacy, body literacy, and really just self advocacy and being able to recognize when something isn’t serving you.

[00:16:05] Jenny Swisher: And I love that you just said they can mean well. And still be harmful, right? And I, I actually, I don’t, I’m not here to say that doctors are evil and they’re out to be against us. I truly do believe that it’s a whole they don’t know what they don’t know situation. So they don’t mean harm for you necessarily, right?

[00:16:21] Jenny Swisher: And I’m not just, I’m not, I’m trying not to stereotype all doctors because that’s not what I believe. But like, But at the same time, they, they mean, well, they just don’t know better and they don’t know what they don’t know how to advise you. So that is so good. And we had to pause there. I think people need to hear that again.

[00:16:33] Jenny Swisher: So I say this a lot. I say, you know, women need to become vulnerable in the service of other women. And that’s what you’re doing here. And I know it’s not easy. I know, for me, I teach what I call the five fundamentals of hormone balance. Used to just be four. So it used to just be fitness, nutrition, sleep, and supplementation when it comes to hormones.

[00:16:50] Jenny Swisher: And this year, after meeting so many women like you and trauma informed therapists and sitting in on consults with women, I recognize the need for a fifth fundamental in trauma and managing our trauma. And what I found is, you know, now all of a sudden we’re seeing research pop up in this area. Dr. Sarah Gottfried has a book called the autoimmune cure where she’s connecting autoimmune disease with childhood trauma.

[00:17:11] Jenny Swisher: We’re starting to see where this is really, really starting to really connect in the functional wellness world. So if you’re listening to this, like, You know this is something that I know I want to expand upon is this, the subject of traumas, whether it’s big T trauma, little T traumas, like we all have them and they influence who we are and how we show up in the world.

[00:17:29] Jenny Swisher: And so one thing that you specifically, I think have dealt with based on what you’re sharing is medical trauma. Yeah. And this is huge. This is something that Dr. Page and I talk about frequently. So many women, especially by the age of 40 or so, when I usually meet them, because they’re going through perimidopause and they want to learn more about hormone health.

[00:17:48] Jenny Swisher: They’re like, they, they almost have this like wall built around them because of the experiences they’ve had in, in, in modern medicine or, or in a doctor’s office. And it’s really unfortunate. And I can speak to my own experience. My dad was, like I said, diagnosed with cancer when I was 12 years old. And as a 12 year old.

[00:18:04] Jenny Swisher: Hospital settings started to just really freak me out. He was put in complete, I always forget the name of it, like complete isolation and quarantine. And so we had to go in and like full PPE as his kids and we couldn’t give him a hug. Right. So there was, there was all this stuff that happened in my childhood that made me like, I do not want to be here.

[00:18:22] Jenny Swisher: I do not want to be in a hospital ever. Right. And so, But it has impacted me to this day. Like my youngest daughter spent three nights in the hospital at the beginning of the school year and all that trauma comes flooding back, right? Like, and even though it’s a different circumstance and a different person, and it’s a different thing, like it’s all there and it all comes back.

[00:18:35] Jenny Swisher: And so medical trauma is a really, really real thing. And. It almost always goes hand in hand with gaslighting. It almost always goes hand in hand with feeling unheard. So, one thing that you also mentioned earlier is pelvic floor. And I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to glaze over that because, we’ve had pelvic floor therapists here on the podcast before.

[00:18:53] Jenny Swisher: This is something that I don’t think a lot of women realize the power of a pelvic floor therapist. It is life changing. Now listen, I did not birth my children, so I adopted both of my girls with my husband, so I did not go through birth. So I haven’t had to necessarily deal with that sort of postpartum stuff, but I have still worked with pelvic floor therapists for just my own.

[00:19:11] Jenny Swisher: I have endometriosis, I have some different, I have like a twisted uterus, I have had weird things. And It’s game changing. Like, it is game changing. So we’re going to talk about this because, I’ve had so many women that when they finally do see a pelvic floor therapist, they’re like, Oh my gosh, I’ve seen the light.

[00:19:23] Jenny Swisher: Like, this is exactly what I’ve needed. I wasn’t breathing properly. I was XYZ. So can you tell us, like, what’s been your experience with pelvic floor work?

[00:19:32] Stephanie Berman: So this is interesting because Dr. Babb always wants to make sure when when a patient coming to see him for pelvic floor Botox that they go home and they have public floor physical therapy.

[00:19:41] Stephanie Berman: So I did that I found like the best public floor physical therapist in our area. And like I literally called their office I’m like, I need to see this physical therapist because she’s recommended to me. And they called her, called me back and said, Oh yeah, she sees all the weird stuff anyway, so you’ll be fine.

[00:19:58] Stephanie Berman: And turns out, so I’ve been seeing her for almost two years now. And I see her like every other week. And through that whole time, she’s probably touched my pelvic floor like twice. Internally, anyway. We’ve been doing a ton of external work on other areas of my body because she’s also trained in counter strain.

[00:20:23] Stephanie Berman: Which if you’ve never heard of it, it’s kind of similar to osteopathy. Like I, I’ll go in and I’ll tell her, I’m like, Hey, my eyebrow hurts right here. I’m pointing at my eyebrow and she, we’ll go look in her book of tender points. And sure enough, that one spot will be connected to the pelvic floor.

[00:20:40] Stephanie Berman: And she’ll treat my eyebrow, and my pelvic floor will feel better. And so, that’s how we’ve been attacking it. And, and, both she and Dr. Babb, independent of each other, have looked at me and said, You know, your whole situation is like an onion. We’re just having to peel back layer, after layer, after layer.

[00:21:00] Stephanie Berman: And I’m like, yeah. Because I’ve had like 13 surgeries, and so I’ve got scar tissue, and My pelvic floor physical therapist discovered that my left leg is three millimeters shorter than my right leg, which could be causing the spasm. There’s one muscle in my, in my pelvic floor that is like spasmed all the time.

[00:21:18] Stephanie Berman: And so we’re thinking, does the leg length difference. Yeah. So, so I’m, so we’ve discovered that and we, we stuck cardboard in my left shoe. It’s been a couple of months and now I’m going back to Oklahoma. So Dr. Babb hasn’t seen my pelvic floor since we discovered the leg length difference. So now I’m excited to go back and see him and be like, is there a noticeable difference in this one muscle that’s so spasming me?

[00:21:47] Stephanie Berman:Yeah, I’m actually kind of excited to see him next week and see what he has to say.

[00:21:47] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I always feel like when people hear me say things like this, like what you’re describing, they’re like, Oh, that sounds woo woo. And I’m like, but is it though? Cause your whole body’s connected. Right. And so I feel like we’ve been conditioned into this, like the brain is not connected to the tailbone or whatever the song is, you know, like, like when I went in for migraines, you know, I spent two and a half years with.

[00:22:06] Jenny Swisher: Everything was examined from here up, like, and I, you guys can’t see me, but like from my chin up, right? Like I had brain MRIs, brain CTs, brain scans, brain, whatever. Botox for migraine, all the things. From my neck up. And when I saw a functional medicine doctor that looked at like the, my whole body, my hormones got tested and they were like, Oh, your hormones are really wacky.

[00:22:27] Jenny Swisher: Let’s look at this. Right? Like what, why did I have to go through two and a half years for the doctors to figure out that my body’s connected? That makes no sense. And so I know what you’re saying. And I realized that on the other end, people could be listening to this and be like, Oh, like her leg length is different.

[00:22:39] Jenny Swisher: And that matters to her pelvic floor. Yeah, because your whole body is connected. And I actually have a good friend of mine who just, she just went to her first pelvic floor therapist. She’s had, so she has two kids and she was telling me, she was like, well, it was uncomfortable the first time. Cause she did have like sort of some internal work done, I’ll say, but she also said she was like, it was also really game changing because I didn’t realize like how my whole body was holding on and was like very tense as a result of my pelvic floor.

[00:23:04] Jenny Swisher: So. You guys, I’m a huge pelvic floor, fan. I will link up in the show notes for you. An interview that I did. It’s actually one of my first podcasts that ever came out. It was an interview with my, my good friends, that I’ll link up for you guys. So you can hear it. So awesome. So I want you to tell us, you know, I always love when women or people in general, just.

[00:23:20] Jenny Swisher: love to just turn around and say, I’m going to take my struggle and turn it into a way to serve. And I know that’s what I’ve done. So I know you’ve got the Aziza project. I want to hear more about that. And then of course we’ll, we’ll link everything up for people too.

[00:23:32] Stephanie Berman: So the morning of my virtual consultation with Dr.

[00:23:36] Stephanie Berman: Babb back in October of 2022, I woke up at three o’clock that morning thinking to myself, how did I get so Privilege to be able to consult with a doctor of his caliber and how can I help other women who don’t have the financial means I do to be able to afford care of this quality because what we haven’t even touched on is the fact that a lot of these specialists have to go out Of networks.

[00:23:59] Stephanie Berman: They can’t afford to keep their doors open and take insurance Don’t even get me started on that soapbox. So I had this thought and I’m like, how can I do it not in our estate planning when we’re dead and gone? I want to do it now for the women who are hurting now. And I had completely forgotten that I had waited like snap my fingers and started a non profit because I have started another organization in the women’s health space.

[00:24:21] Stephanie Berman: back in like 2009 and we went the fiscal sponsorship route. So we had a fiscal sponsor in California. I did not remember we had this fiscal sponsor until we were in Tulsa in, in January. I was laying on the hotel bed record recovering from anesthesia. And I was like, oh yeah, this physical sponsor in California, I should email them and see if they want another women’s health project.

[00:24:43] Stephanie Berman: And so I emailed them, they got back to me pretty quickly and said, let’s sit down next week when you’re home and we’ll talk. And within 30 minutes of that conversation, they’re like, yeah, we’d like, wait, what? We like how it sounds. We’ll, just see it as an extension of what you’re already doing with us, so you don’t even have to fill out any more paperwork.

[00:25:03] Stephanie Berman: So, no board, no nothing, just me trying to fundraise for a logo and a website and a branding package and the whole bit. And I just jumped right in and I basically told Dr. Bam, I’m like, this is what I’m doing. He’s like, Okay, and, there’s been some bumps along the road, but we’ve gotten pieces and parts in place and we’ve helped financially helped three patients, three clients now I should call them And two last year, one this year.

[00:25:30] Stephanie Berman: The one this year was the first one we actually got to send to Tulsa. So that was pretty special. And that was, that was great. She had been suffering for like four years and actually worked, like volunteers in the pelvic health, space, pelvic pain space already. So we’re like, yeah, let’s get her to Tulsa.

[00:25:46] Stephanie Berman: And we were able to get her to Tulsa, start getting her some answers. I may have to send her back to Tulsa for Botox, but we’ll see.

[00:25:53] Jenny Swisher: But yeah, that’s where we’re at. I love that. I love that. So if people were wanting to know more about this and they were wanting to maybe like donate to this cause or whatever, like what’s the best way for them to do that?

[00:26:02] Stephanie Berman: Best way is to go to our website, which I’m sure will be in the show notes, but I’ll say it’s azizaproject. org. And Aziza is just A Z I Z A. And there’s a button there to subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which is free, and, you’ll get some, patient story, information of how to donate in the newsletter, stuff like that.

[00:26:22] Stephanie Berman: Volunteer opportunities, we’re always looking for people to help us with, like, social media, and Podcasters and stuff like that. I’ll link to podcast interviews in the newsletter. And then the other thing that there’s a donate button on the website too. You can go there. You can donate one time donations.

[00:26:37] Stephanie Berman: You can make a monthly donation. And we recently switched payment processors. Now, if you donate 5 to us, we get the whole 5 and then you can make an optional donation to the payment processor to help them with their fees.

[00:26:55] Jenny Swisher: I love that. That’s amazing. So you mean, yeah, I always, we used to own a gym and like, if people wanted to buy a shake and it was 3, I think I made like 50 cents cause the processor would take so much.

[00:27:04] Jenny Swisher: You know, you’re like, why am I doing this? Awesome. I love that. Well, but again, I just thank you for sharing your story here for getting vulnerable with us. Like I said, this is a topic that we haven’t shared much about, but I know there are women out there suffering and there’s somebody that’s going to hear this.

[00:27:18] Jenny Swisher: Whether it’s somebody that could, you know, really benefit from the Aziza project or somebody who is listening to this and they’re like, wow, this is me and I need to investigate this further because I thought it was just me. I know I’m going to get that feedback from somebody. So thank you for doing this.

[00:27:18] Jenny Swisher: Thank you for taking the time. Any final words before we part?

[00:27:23] Stephanie Berman: I would just say if you feel like you’re suffering with Any sort of pelvic pain, keep looking for answers, find providers that will listen to you and care. Because that was the one thing, that was the one question I asked to Dr. Bab, at the very beginning of the consultation, I said to him, if you can’t figure this out, are you just going to give up like everybody else?

[00:27:46] Stephanie Berman: And he said, no, I’m a bit of a bulldog and I’m going to fight until we figure this out. And I’m like, okay, we’ve, we can do this. Right. Right.

[00:27:53] Jenny Swisher: Dr. Right. Dr.

[00:27:54] Stephanie Berman: Yeah. Doctors like that. And if you need help getting to see Dr. Bab, give me a call.

[00:28:01] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Okay. Perfect. So yeah, I mean, we’ve covered so much and so little time here.

[00:28:06] Jenny Swisher: You guys, I will, I will link up everything she mentioned for you in the show notes. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, but thank you again, Stephanie, for being here. I so appreciate you and my friends. We’ll talk again soon. Have a good one.