That means increasing the levels of support you can count on and helping you to find more joy.
As a health coach, my job is to help you to improve your overall health and well being. That means increasing the levels of support you can count on and helping you to find more joy. We’ll figure out ways to decrease symptoms and reduce acute exacerbations (“crashes”). If that’s not possible, we’ll work on making the most of the productive time you do have each day.
We’ll figure out how to do these things together. You’ll set your own goals and then we’ll determine the best way for you to meet them. I’ll provide ongoing support and guidance as you make sustainable changes that improve your health and your happiness.
Lives are more difficult because many illnesses are stigmatized or controversial, like ME/CFS, Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), fibromyalgia (FM), Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), chronic or post-Lyme Disease, and post-COVID 19 among others.
A diagnosis like this initially turns your life upside down. You’re not able to do what you once did, and it’s terribly difficult to accept the new limitations your symptoms impose. They can change your daily life as well as your identity, your self-esteem and the future you imagined for yourself. Such a diagnosis adds additional stress and strain to a life that might have already contained quite enough of both.
It shouldn’t be surprising that once we’re diagnosed with such illnesses, we find ourselves not quite fitting into our own lives. In too many cases, we’re not even able to find appropriately trained medical help to get a diagnosis. Perhaps we’ve been to several physicians, but those doctors may disagree, disbelieve or disrespect us; or perhaps we’ve gotten a diagnosis, but our family and friends don’t “believe” in it. Sometimes it feels like the very act of figuring out what’s wrong is booby-trapped, and the whole process can be incomprehensible and awful.
I went through these kinds of difficulties myself when I was diagnosed at various times in my life with Myalgic Encephalomyolitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), mold illness or Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), fibromyalgia (FM), Lyme Disease and post-COVID illness. I was lucky to have a supportive husband, family and friends, and I have been able to find physicians who helped me recover to the point where I can live a satisfying life.
Struggling not only with illness, but with the disbelieving, disrespectful views of those around you is a heavy, lonely burden to carry. No one should have to do that alone.