Hear Me, Hear Us

My heartaches today... In so many of my different Facebook groups it has been post after post of friends, parents, other family members and even doctors not listening to my fellow chronic illness warriors. Their symptoms get dismissed. They're put and kept on medication that doesn't help. They're told they're taking their symptoms for drugs or attention. When that's not true.
We're given up on, jobs are loss, relationships abandoned all for things we are in no control of. We hate this helpless feeling of being a "waste" which btw we're not but you can't help but feel that way sometimes. Insurance, hospitals, doctors, hell, even our own government fails us. We are sometimes just left to asking our community "what can we do?" And hope someone suggest something we haven't tried yet in hopes it might work. Because just like the severity and symptoms of our illness differ, so does our body's response to different treatment options.
Did you know caffeine can both treat AND be a trigger for a migraine depending on the person? So there is no universal way to treat a migraine. Because of this there are meds with and without caffeine in it.
And often times with chronic illnesses doctors don't know too much because everything is underfunded. What's a doctor to do with a disease that has no cure? It's honestly easier for us as patients to do the research than our doctors because we are not our doctor's office ly patient. They only know things through textbook which, Ooo lucky us, we somehow defy. Lovely isn't it?
Now don't get me wrong there are some truly lucky chronic illness warriors out there who are able to live a functional life and I'm so happy for them being constantly miserable is no fun at all. But for many of us we didn't catch that unicorn. They are in the spot we strive, hope, and pray to all be in someday soon. But for some of us the struggle is unremarkably real. So whoever you are reading this, remember that. And remember that our pain and symptoms are real. All we want is to be believed in.