Trigger Warning: in our conversation, we discuss chronic health conditions, diet, and body measurements. Please take care of yourselves as you listen and avoid if these topics might be triggering for you.
Everyone, please welcome Katie Stone to Continued Conversations! Katie and I were connected through a friend of mine, Alia Parise, who I previously spoke with on Continued Conversations. (Thank you, Alia - we love you!) Katie is also a fellow fit model and print model, and when she had mentioned she has a condition called adenomyosis that she is starting to talk more publicly about, I knew we had to chat.
After all she’s been through with her condition, Katie’s outlook on her life and her relationship to her body now is extremely inspiring. She opens up about her story and shares so beautifully all that she’s gone through that led her to where she’s at now in terms of how she’s relating to her body. She shares so much about her own story in our conversation, and I know she hopes to reach others in doing so too. [Keep an eye out because this woman is going to write a book one day!!!]
In our conversation, we discuss…
Katie’s health journey that led to her adenomyosis diagnosis
Educating yourself and caring for your body through that lens while struggling with a chronic health condition becomes your part-time or full-time job
Radical acceptance of her pain, coupled with science and spirituality, allowed her to begin to heal her body
The Dutch Test gave her a breakdown of her hormones
Having to give up coffee, even though she loves it so much - the sacrifices she has had to make to feel good in her body
How she deeply listened to her body when it told her not to get a hysterectomy
Katie’s serendipitous discovery of her doctor, who changed everything (who’s also named Katie)
The toll stress, coupled with genetics, diet, and lifestyle, can truly take on our bodies
How to cope when feeling out of control in your own body
Katie’s journy towards opening up about her story and listening to her own heart
Being honest with a client (or anyone, really) instead of pretending everything is okay
Katie’s vulnerability in sharing her story was admirable. She got into the nitty-gritty of the intersection of science and spirituality when it comes to how she is healing her body. Despite her journey and all she’s been through, Katie is such a light of a human, and I cannot wait for you to hear our conversation!
“ I want other women to understand that they’re not the only ones going through this. That it is so confusing, and it’s frustrating, and I get it. And I have just been the type of person where I don’t accept just giving up in my life. I cannot accept that. I cannot accept, “Well, I guess I’m gonna have to remove my entire uterus because there’s nothing else I can do, and I’m at the mercy of people telling me what I should be doing." I just – and trust me, I have worked with amazing gynecologists, you know, just people who really do care about me and my wellbeing. But this is just how the world works. You do have to do your own research. You do have to find people you work with, that you work well together. You do need to approach it in a holistic sense, in my opinion, if you don’t want to go down that route.”
- Katie Stone
Below is a text insert of our conversation that stuck with me, starting at around the 28-minute and 2-second mark:
Katie Stone: I’ve had to navigate through all of this while still doing all of the work that I do. And but, you know, health comes first and foremost because it affects everything else in my life. So it’s like, I know that I need to prioritize this, even if that means that maybe I don’t get a casting one day because I’m just not the right measurements because maybe I’ve been eating a certain way for a few months, and it’s actually made me smaller, and now I’m not those measurements anymore, but I want to bounce back, you know? And so, it’s just a matter of being aware of what’s going on and understanding that you have to just love your body. You have to love yourself going through this. You really do, because it’s difficult and I don’t want to make it worse for myself ultimately.
Megan Gill: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that’s such an important piece of the conversation, that even when you are dealing with so many of these things that are so out of your control – granted, I do think that just living in a body, generally speaking, we think we can control all these little things about ourselves, but we can’t. And then you add a condition like adenomyosis on top of that, and you’re like, “Wow, I really have no control,” especially with the elimination from your diet and trying different things here and there. It’s like, oh my god, it seems as if it’s what the average person experiences, yet tenfold.
Katie Stone: Yeah. Yeah, it really is. And again, people sometimes have no idea that I go through this because I’m not the type to complain a lot. I’m not the type to just, you know, publicly share so much about all of the details that I go through, because it is very sensitive stuff, and I want to share it because I want other people to be aware, first of all. And I want other women to understand that they’re not the only ones going through this. That it is so confusing, and it’s frustrating, and I get it. And I have just been the type of person where I don’t accept just giving up in my life. I cannot accept that. I cannot accept, “Well, I guess I’m gonna have to remove my entire uterus because there’s nothing else I can do, and I’m at the mercy of people telling me what I should be doing.”
I just – and trust me, I have worked with amazing gynecologists, you know, just people who really do care about me and my wellbeing. But this is just how the world works. You do have to do your own research. You do have to find people you work with, that you work well together. You do need to approach it in a holistic sense, in my opinion, if you don’t want to go down that route, and I didn’t. It’s not specifically because I want to have kids or anything that. It’s more so because this is my body, and that’s such a drastic move to have to remove something completely from your body. And then when you think about it – and I know that this has helped so many women out there, you know, having that type of surgery, and I completely get that and support people in their decision, no matter what they do. But for me personally, I just didn’t want to go down that route. And you know, when you remove an organ from your body, that doesn’t necessarily mean you completely solve the problem, you know? Because you’re not understanding, again, why the inflammation is happening to begin with and what’s going on with your hormones. You could still be doing things like, you know, stress levels and things that, that are affecting you even if you do remove your uterus.
So I just like, logically just thought like, “Well, but I want to know what’s going on in my body, you know, and I want to figure that out.” I want to have a working relationship with my body versus thinking of it as something just like, “Okay, I’ll just remove this,” you know, as a project or something.
Megan Gill: Yeah, like a curiosity about deepening that connection to your body that had not been present for so long. And I don’t mean to say that so black and white, but just getting more and more connected. this body that you felt you were disconnected to previously when you had first started going through all of this is deeply important, and that makes so much sense and is so beautiful. And I’m also curious about, earlier you mentioned that there was a whisper telling you not to have the surgery and not to remove your uterus.
Katie Stone: Yes. Yeah.
Megan Gill: I’m curious to hear more about that because that’s also like – I love that you listen to that. That is deep listening to what your body is telling you. And I think that so many people cannot or do not listen to themselves in that way, you know?
Katie Stone: Yeah, no, that’s an amazing point, and I’m really glad you brought that up because that was a really big turning point for me because I was at the end of the line. I was just like, “Okay, I don’t know what else to do.” I was so frustrated. Megan, I was so frustrated.
You know, it was probably summer of last year. Yeah, summer of last year, and I was so frustrated at that point, and I exhausted everything, or so I thought at that time, and I was just like, “You know what? Forget it. I’m just gonna get the surgery.” I had scheduled it; I actually had scheduled the surgery. I put it on the calendar, you know, with the surgery scheduler and and everything, you know. And then, because it takes a long time to schedule those types of surgeries, I had a few months, and I was like, “Okay, if I don’t figure it out in the next few months, I already have it on the calendar, and I’ll do it.”
So that really put my butt into gear to figure it out. And I have to give a giant shout-out to my mom, because she heavily helped me throughout this. And she was very much on my side of like, “Whatever you want to do, I support. But I do think we should give it one last shot just to see if we can find someone out there who specializes in this.” Because I had talked to nutritionists in the past. I had talked to more holistic types of doctors, Chinese, you know, medicine, and things that. I’ve done so many things, you know, acupuncture and things that. And it just, nothing was working enough. And that’s why I was like, “Well, I tried that, so why would I keep trying that?” So that’s why I was just at this point where I was like, “Screw it. I’m just gonna get the surgery.” But then my mom was like, “Let’s just try it one more time. Like, what do we have to lose? Just one more time, just maybe do a little bit more research. You have a different perspective now. If you can find someone to help you, great.”
So then I searched for just dieticians or nutritionists – because I know there’s a difference – but dieticians who specialize in this menstrual condition, I searched for that in Los Angeles, and there were about five to ten that came up that I looked into a little further. I contacted a few. I set up a few calls with them, consultations. I talked to three different people, ultimately. One, she was really great. Wasn’t crazy about her systems, but she had amazing knowledge. Another one I talked to, she was great as well, but she ended up telling me, “I don’t think I’m the right person for you, but I do know someone in my network who I think would be really great if you talk to her instead.” And she said, “I don’t know if she’s taking new clients, but it might be worth a shot just to share your story with her and see what happens.”
So then I emailed her, and her name’s also Katie. I emailed her immediately, and I shared my story with her as to – I was just – I just gave everything I got. I was like, “This is what I’ve gone through. This is what I need. Can you help me?” And she messaged me back pretty fast and said, “Let’s work together. I want to help you.” And I was just like – my heart was just like, “Oh my god, thank god. Thank god I found someone. I hope this works out,” you know? Because I still didn’t fully know. And then we got on a call. I loved her style and her system. Her brain works mine. I was like, “This is great.” You know, she had worked with a few, just a few, other women who had this condition and successfully, you know, got them stable to the point in their lives where it’s just more manageable, you know, and that’s all I wanted. I just wanted to be more manageable. I know this is something I’m gonna have to deal with until I go through menopause. That’s just how it works, you know, because you can’t just completely get rid of this, as far as I know. So that’s all I wanted. And so I’ve been working with her since then.
And again, she’s someone that I had to find on my own. It’s very specific to my needs, and everything that she has treated me with, very specific. For other women, I highly recommend that they talk to a dietician if they’re going through anything remotely similar to what I’m going through and get some testing done. A Dutch test is fantastic for that. I even also recently did a gut biome test where I tested out to see what’s going on, you know, in my intestines, because that has a direct impact on. Your hormones as well, you know, your digestive system. If that’s all out of whack too, then – the two go hand in hand. They work together .your hormones and your reproductive system and all of that, plus what’s going on in your gut. So I knew that that was important.
We recently did that too. And again, mind-blowing data that I learned just from going through that, and her going through the information with me. You know, because a lot of the times too, when you’re online, there are so many people out there just trying to be like, “Oh, this is what you should do. This is the product you should try. This is the supplement mission to try,” and it’s overwhelming. And that’s why I think it’s so important to find the right person to work with you. I don’t think there’s one answer or one product or one solution that’s gonna solve everything, because I’ve been there, done that, and it’s just not the case. So you have to have it specialized to your body and what’s going on specifically inside of you. But I highly recommend to do that testing, and of course, work with your doctors at the same time, but then also work with the dietician to help you get that testing done, to understand what’s exactly going on in your body, so that you can get a plan tailored specifically to you.
So we ordered some supplements and changed up my diet, incorporated more breathwork into my life, and all that. And I’m till going through the process, but it has significantly improved since working with her, significantly improved. First of all, I’m not bleeding the entire month. I’m not dealing with just this bleeding, this constant bleeding. There was a time where I was – it wasn’t heavy every single day, but I was bleeding every single day for a month at one point.
Megan Gill: Oh, my gosh.
Katie Stone: So I was like, if we could at least just get to the point where I’m just having a period and not like – great! You know, and we got to that point because of the supplements and just understanding that my hormones weren’t communicating properly together, they weren’t working like they should. And so, by getting to that first issue and solving that, I was like, okay, now I can just be a normal person, and just, yes, I’m still gonna have these horrible periods, but at least I’m not dealing with this every single day, you know?
So, yeah. So it just took a matter of just me and my refusal to give up on myself and understand that there’s this intuition in all of us. There is something that you feel inside of you, and from my experience. When I don’t listen to it, it’ll creep back in at some point, and it’s just gonna be like, “Hey, come on. I know you hear me. Are you gonna listen to me? Are you gonna use your brain too much, or are you gonna listen to your heart?” You know? And so, that’s kind of what I’ve been practicing more, just listening to my heart more than trying to brain my way through. Yes, of course, you have to use your brain too, you know? But I think it’s both heavily. Because there were so many times where I thought, “No, I’m just gonna get the surgery. Like, I don’t want to go through this anymore. What if I try all these things and they don’t work? You know, what if I just waste all this time, and I could have just gotten the surgery and been done with it,” and all of that.
There were so many times where I felt that, but again, there was this intuition, and again, my mom that just kept creeping back in and telling me, “Just wait. Just wait a little bit longer. Just try this first and see how you feel.”
And I literally, I think it was today or yesterday where I canceled the surgery appointment finally. It’s off my calendar because I said to myself, “I’m not gonna do it. I’m done. I, for sure, have made up my mind that I’m not going down that route because of the results that I’ve seen so far, and I am just scared as to what that would even look like for me if I did get the surgery, afterward, meaning, you know? Because there’s so much that could come up from that, during and after. So many women have had successful procedures done. I get that. But for me, I’m just listening to my heart and just realizing that that just wasn’t the right path for me, and to just do everything I possibly can to make sure that I feel good and solid about my decision and moving forward.
Megan Gill: I think that, wow, that is extremely profound. And I also just want to point out that you stopped running from your body. You stopped, to me, symbolically getting the surgery and removing this thing from your body is still running, right? And instead, you chose to take the potentially more difficult route and the potentially longer route and to become more embodied and to turn inward, and to really try to figure out going on, and to work with your body and to nurture your body in certain ways, and to give it what’s going to help it function better for you, and to maybe eliminate something that you love so much, but that’s not helping it function in the way that you need it to. And I just think that that is extremely admirable and a really beautiful part of your story.
Katie Stone: Thank you.
Megan Gill: And I just wanted to reflect that back to you. Sitting here listening, I’m like, that’s incredible because it’s sometimes so much easier to just run from the thing and just wipe your hands clean of it, even if it potentially might not have been the ultimate solve, like you were saying, right?
Katie Stone: Yeah.
Megan Gill: So I just really commend you for making the conscious decision to work through this condition and to work with your body and to hold your own hand all the way through it.
Katie Stone: Thank you. I really appreciate you saying that too, because again, when you’re going through all this, it can feel – I mean I know I have a lot of people in my life who care about me and who are supportive and all of that, but it can feel very lonely sometimes just because I am literally the only one who knows exactly what I’m going through and what’s right for me, because I’m the one experiencing it.
““There were so many times where I just wanted to run away from my own body. I felt like my body had betrayed me. I felt so disconnected because I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. I couldn’t understand what I needed to do about it. I couldn’t understand why all the things that I had been doing, they weren’t enough. And you know, I hit my head so many times on the wall just trying to figure it out, you know? And then finally, over time, I just surrendered to it. I just accepted the fact that this is just where I’m at in my life right now. This is just what I’m going through. I don’t have all the answers. It’s okay. I’m gonna love myself throughout this process, even though I hate it sometimes, and even though, you know, there were so many times where I was just sitting there being like, “Why me? Like, why is this happening to me?” I didn’t know anyone else that had been going through anything like I had been going through. So I felt very alone sometimes.”
- Katie Stone
Katie Stone is a Los Angeles based model and speaker navigating adenomyosis while building a career that depends on her body. While managing severe pain and bleeding that required four blood transfusions, she pursued conventional medical treatments and gradually incorporated holistic approaches in an effort to better understand her body and find sustainable stability. She speaks about the intersection of chronic illness, identity, and learning to build trust with a body that doesn’t always feel predictable.
A couple of notes to ensure this is a safe space for my guests to share their intimate and vulnerable body image stories in:
It can be easy to feel alone on your journey of existing in a body. I welcome the connection and support of one another in this space through considerate and curious comments.
These conversations are quite nuanced, complex, and oftentimes very vulnerable. Remember that everyone has their own body image story, and while someone else’s might look differently than yours, I encourage you to keep an open mind and stay empathetic.
Thank you for being here. By sharing this type of content, my hope is to inspire personal reflection and cultural questioning. Thank you and supporting me in exploring the effects of our culture’s beauty norms and body standards on human beings existing in today’s world.
Do you have a friend, family member or peer who might love this too? I’d be honored if you could help me spread the word about my writing and body image conversations!
While I’m not a licensed therapist, registered dietician, or medical health professional and cannot speak to body image topics from a clinical, trauma-informed place, I am an expert of lived experience. I’m an academic of my own body, and I’m passionate about facilitating conversations with other humans about their relationships with their bodies. I believe it’s important to continue conversations about healthy body image in creative spaces as a means to heal individuals as well as the collective whole. But just know the information presented in this medium is not professional mental health advice or medical advice, and any questions or concerns you have should always be directed to your health providers.
