From how to work with your doctor to why you are being failed by the medical system. It’s important to understand the system and the reasons why it fails you as this enables you to fight for better care.
Above I mentioned how the change in narrative around pain medications is affecting our treatment and part of what has caused this change is the drug seeker narrative. Unfortunately, it’s true that opiods at one point were over prescribed but this was to people who had no long term need for them. They are after […]
With the rise of the internet and the ability to google your symptoms many have been turning to self diagnosis but what really is it and why is important? We’ve all heard about doctor google and how you probably shouldn’t just google symptoms as more often than not the internet will tell you that you […]
COVID-19 has ripped through our lives and turned everything upside down but there’s something else going on that until now hadn’t been brought to the public’s attention, and that’s the idea that you can get sick and never get better. You might have started to see it in the news or online, ‘post viral fatigue’ […]
Research shows us that it takes between 5-10 years to get diagnosed with a chronic illness. Some stats for specific conditions are: Ankylosing Spondylitis – Research shows that it takes 1/3 of patients up to 10 years to get a diagnosis. Psoriatic Arthritis – For 30 percent of PsA patients, it took more than five […]
This week I’ve been looking at how you make a complaint to your health care provider. Surprisingly many people don’t know they can actually make a complaint about the treatment they receive. Like many things with chronic illness this is yet another thing you don’t get told about. So let’s break it down! There is […]
So it’s been a hot minute since we last spoke and a lot has happened in that time. Don’t worry though this is a completely C word free newsletter! (A rarity in this day and age!!) Over on the ‘Gram I have been speaking about the ways in which brain fog affects me and the […]
Oh medication, having been around free range humans (aka those who are not housebound by chronic illness) I’ve been reminded of how much they cling to the idea that medication can fix everything. That when you get sick the doctor’s hand you pills that magically make it all ok again. Any one who’s been chronically ill for […]
I am breaking the cardinal rule of pain club and I am actually going to talk about pain. It was only the other day, when I was talking with a fellow spoonie friend that I realised to some extent we all actively avoid talking about our pain. I think in the beginning it’s about not creating […]
Chronic pain (that is pain that last for six months or more) is largely misunderstood and worse still when it comes to women and pain. Which is astounding considering that 70% of chronic pain patients are women but 80% of pain studies are carried out on men or male mice. That’s just not ok! We are […]
