Unpacking the Rage of 15 Years Living with Chronic Pain

MaKenzie has received a slew of chronic pain and chronic illness diagnoses over the years, including Chiari malformation, lupus, Sjogren’s disease and Hashimoto’s syndrome, but she isn’t focused on her diagnoses. She’s focused on managing the daily impact of her symptoms and the emotional toll this journey has taken. She Read more…

How Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis Became Andrea’s Path to Empowerment

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis refers to an onset of autoimmune arthritis at a young age, which happened to Andrea when she was just 10 years old. She had been experiencing severe TMJ, wrist and knee pain, but doctors did not realize she had juvenile RA throughout her childhood. She was finally Read more…

The Infuriating Contradictions of Undiagnosed Illness

Courtney refers to herself as a hot potato patient, being passed from specialist to specialist in search of a diagnosis to her mystery illness, but none of these providers have been willing to keep digging until an answer is found. She used to be an avid globe trotter while working Read more…

Living with Multiple Autoimmune Diseases

According to the National Library of Medicine, about 25 percent of patients with an autoimmune disease will develop additional autoimmune diseases. That is definitely true of this week’s podcast guest, Vicky. Her first diagnosis of autoimmune rheumatoid arthritis came during high school, and she was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome a Read more…

Crohn’s Disease and Deep Vein Thrombosis Inspired Douglas To Become a Chinese Medicine Practitioner and Sex Therapist

Throughout his life, Douglas had been plagued by random episodes of fever, but they usually passed on their own and he was able to mostly ignore them. That all changed in his late 20s, when a particularly horrible fever took him to the emergency room. Doctors discovered an infection from Read more…

Her Laundry List of Diagnoses Inspired a Children’s Book About Autoimmune Disease

Heather has accumulated an overwhelming number of medical diagnoses, including Sjogren’s disease, vasculitis, SLE lupus, new daily persistent headache disorder, small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and endometriosis. At 20 years old her boyfriend (who is now her husband) sat her down to say she was sick and needed to go Read more…

Living with Celiac Disease, Chronic Migraines, Covid Complications, Fibromyalgia and more

Kristin has lived with pain since she was 9 years old, a journey that has taken her through chronic migraines, celiac disease, covid complications and remaining medical mysteries. As a child she would experience tingling pain in her head, often accompanied by visual disturbances, nausea and vomiting. Shortly after these Read more…

Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Between sophomore and junior year of college, Cheryl’s world turned upside down as she began to feel mysteriously unwell. She started losing weight at a frightening rate, getting down to 105 pounds. Her doctors refused to believe that she was ill, going so far as to call Cheryl’s parents and Read more…

Living with Nontraumatic Spinal Cord Injury and Sjogren’s Syndrome

Towards the end of 2020 Nic’s life took a bizarre turn. He had been a healthy father who enjoyed helping others as an EMT, but suddenly found himself in the midst of his own medical trauma. He started experiencing mysterious weakness and numbness in his legs, soon finding himself unable Read more…

Living with Multiple Diagnoses and Multiple Mysteries

Stacey experiences a wide variety of complex health issues that impact her daily life. Doctors have diagnosed and labeled her with many things, including autoimmune diabetes, fibromyalgia, severe anxiety with agoraphobia, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Living inside such a multifaceted symptom picture has been extremely challenging, especially since doctors can’t Read more…