Bonnie from Dream Big Wellness discusses art therapy and mental health care for chronic illness and cancer care patients.

Art Therapy and Mental Health Care for Chronic Illness Patients

Bonnie is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Washington state as well as a nationally registered and board certified art therapist.  As an undergrad in psychology and art, Bonnie knew she wanted to help people but was initially hesitant to take on the graduate school needed to become an Read more…

A photo of podcast guest Hannah, who discusses her history with vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (VEDS)

Living with Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (VEDS)

Hannah is still trying to live her life as any other 22 year old would, dancing with friends, enjoying the outdoors, and loving the cows on her family farm. She hopes to share this positive view of life with chronic illnesses on her public Instagram page beyond.the.label_0 to help show Read more…

Cover photo for the video version of the Major Pain season 5 premiere, featuring snapshots from the video conversations. From left to right: Joey, Colby, Jesse and Angela

Season 5 Premiere! Catching Up With Previous Guests Joey, Colby and Angela

Today we are kicking off the fifth season of Major Pain! Jesse reflects on the past year before we jump into three interviews with previous guests, updating us on their health journeys. Joey tells us about a surgery to manage his hidradenitis suppurativa, plus updates on his amazing advocacy work. Read more…

From Rebellious to Transformative: Alex’s Journey with Type 1 Diabetes

Alex Burket believes that his bout with bacterial meningitis in middle school may have saved his life, because it led to the discovery of his type 1 diabetes. Although meningitis resolved in about a month, diabetes would become a constant companion. 17 years later, Alex has learned a tremendous amount Read more…

Tayler’s EDS was Screaming for Attention, But Doctors Ignored It

Looking back through the history of her medical challenges, it becomes painfully obvious that Tayler was born with the connective tissue disease EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome). Unfortunately, the lack of quality healthcare in her youth prevented this diagnosis for many years. She struggled physically throughout childhood, often being accused of laziness Read more…

Announcing the Undiagnosed Disease Fund!

Andi and Jesse are married! For their wedding registry they asked their community to donate to an Undiagnosed Disease Fund, with the goal of raising enough money to provide genetic testing for an individual in need. Full genome sequencing can be helpful for individuals with a mystery illness, either to Read more…

Introducing Guava: A Personalized Chronic Illness Management App

Living with a chronic health condition is difficult enough, but managing health records, medications and symptom tracking can feel impossible. That’s what the folks at Guava are trying to fix. They have created a free centralized holistic health management tool that integrates with over 50,000 health organizations across the US Read more…

Fighting Back Against CFS/ME With Dr. Hoppers

Dr. Melanie Hoppers never planned to become an expert on chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). She learned about it briefly in medical school, but her professors largely brushed off the complaints of CFS patients. It wasn’t until her own daughter got sick that Dr. Hoppers began to research CFS, becoming desperate Read more…

From Lupus to Fibromyalgia: Kindra’s Evolving Diagnosis

For Kindra, it’s been a 17 year journey to figure out why she is chronically ill. Her symptoms started around 14 years old, and include not just widespread chronic pain, but also severe fatigue and brain fog. Although the pain is difficult, the fatigue has the most detrimental effect on Read more…

Psoriatic Disease, Small Fiber Neuropathy and More: Angela’s Diagnostic Odyssey

When Angela was 25, she was used to physically pushing her body. She was a runner who had always been healthy, besides being suspiciously hypermobile. Then one day at the gym she suddenly became unusually exhausted, and her legs felt like they were on fire. This would kick off a Read more…