Cramped! With Kate Downey

Nobody Should Believe Me

True Story Media

Society & Culture, True Crime, Personal Journals

4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this conversation, Kate Downey, the host and creator of the podcast Cramped, shares her personal journey with severe period pain and the challenges she faced in the medical system. She discusses the lack of understanding and research surrounding women's health issues and emphasizes the importance of advocacy, education, and open conversations about women's health. Kate and Andrea also explore the complicated overlap of visiting multiple doctors for unresolved symptoms vs doctor shopping in medical child abuse cases. They discuss how we can demand better research, better transparency, and better care. *** Listen to Cramped: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cramped/id1778101696 Try out Andrea’s Podcaster Coaching App: https://studio.com/apps/andrea/podcaster Order Andrea’s book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy. Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	True Story Media.
0:09.3	Hello, it's Andrea.
0:11.2	We've got a fantastic crossover episode for you today with a very talented podcast friend, Kate Downey, creator of Cramped, an incredible series all about Kate's journey to discover
0:23.1	why she was experiencing horrific period pain and the medical odyssey she went on to try to cure it.
0:30.0	What does this have to do with Munchausen by proxy, you may ask?
0:33.0	Kind of a lot, as it turns out.
0:34.8	And we will get into all of that in this conversation.
0:38.8	In the meantime,
0:45.9	season seven is coming. We are working furiously to get all of those episodes in the can. This has been a very big, complex season to put together, and I'm really excited to share it with you.
0:51.2	As a reminder, if you want to binge the whole season at launch, that is a
0:55.0	benefit of being a subscriber to the show on Patreon or Apple Podcasts, where you also get
0:59.9	ad-free listening, access to the show's complete archive and bonus episodes. This month,
1:05.3	Dr. Beck's and I are going to be revisiting Mommy Dead and Dearest, the HBO documentary about
1:09.9	the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case,
1:11.6	and also digging in a bit to these efforts to debunk the story of Gypsy's abuse.
1:16.9	Dark stuff.
1:18.5	Speaking of which, if you have never left our show a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify,
1:23.9	we sure would appreciate you are doing so.
1:26.8	We have gotten a whole string of negative reviews
1:29.2	and ratings from non-listeners who were angry about us having Gypsy Rose Blanchard on. And look,
1:35.0	this kind of thing is an occupational hazard. My reporting is pretty reliably going to make
1:40.0	some groups very mad at me from time to time, and I'm at peace with that. But if you do have
	...

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