It was very lonely, actually. I thought I was the only person on earth that has these symptoms.

And one of the doctors really told me that I'm like his first case.

Case, like as in a case, not a patient.

Welcome to like mind, like body. I'm Laura Sago, and today I get the pleasure of sharing a really wonderful story with you. This story comes to us all the way from Hong Kong, where our guest

Etrienne has been struggling with chronic symptoms for decades.

Today, she's going to talk through her unexpected road to recovery and how that has impacted

her life as a doctor and as an individual. During the interview, you will hear us mention

the curable app and curable groups a few times. If you're new

here, just a heads up that the curable app is designed to help people like Etrienne recover from

chronic symptoms. And this podcast is in fact a part of the curable app. It's designed to help give

you hope and inspiration during your own healing journey.

If you're interested in learning more, just head to curable.com to try it out for free.

Now let's get to the interview.

Etrian, thank you so much for joining us today and for agreeing to tell us about your incredible journey.

I would love to start at the very beginning.

Can you tell me about when your pain and symptoms first began?

Okay. Thank you for having me. I'm humbled. And, um, okay, first of all, a little introduction.

I'm at trian. I'm 40 years old. I'm an ophthalmologist from Hong Kong. And I'm a mother to a pair of three-year-old twin boys.

So my story is a little strange and miraculous at the same time, at least to myself, because I've been called a rare case by my doctors and it really bothers me that they say that.

And the symptoms all started 10 years ago when I was 29 years old. I first had an acute

prolapse disc while putting on a pair of pajamas pants in the middle of the night.

I was admitted to the hospital with an acute lower back pain, and then the lower back pain

...