#diabetic foot problems

[cuidadoscomocorpo]

How Diabetes Affects Your Feet (Diabetic Foot) - Identifying Diabetic Foot Symptoms - Healthy Feet!

In this video, we delve into what diabetic foot problems really look like and provide valuable insights on how diabetes can affect your feet. Learn about common foot issues that can arise from diabetes and discover essential tips for maintaining healthy feet. If you or someone you know is living with diabetes, this video is a must-watch to ensure proper foot care and overall well-being.

Share This Video: https://youtu.be/t2bze6P7vtY

diabeticfootproblems #diabeticfootissues #diabeticneuropathy

[andreiamat]

How Diabetes Affects Your Feet (Diabetic Foot) - Identifying Diabetic Foot Symptoms - Healthy Feet!

In this video, we delve into what diabetic foot problems really look like and provide valuable insights on how diabetes can affect your feet. Learn about common foot issues that can arise from diabetes and discover essential tips for maintaining healthy feet. If you or someone you know is living with diabetes, this video is a must-watch to ensure proper foot care and overall well-being.

[bemestaresucesso]

How Diabetes Affects Your Feet (Diabetic Foot) - Identifying Diabetic Foot Symptoms - Healthy Feet!

In this video, we delve into what diabetic foot problems really look like and provide valuable insights on how diabetes can affect your feet. Learn about common foot issues that can arise from diabetes and discover essential tips for maintaining healthy feet. If you or someone you know is living with diabetes, this video is a must-watch to ensure proper foot care and overall well-being.

[podiatrycentersmaryland]

Podiatrists commonly treat a range of foot-related issues, including ingrown toenails, plantar fasciitis, bunions, corns, calluses, and foot deformities. If you are looking for a reliable podiatrist in Greenbelt, contact Podiatry Centers of Maryland. Our skilled podiatrists offer comprehensive foot and ankle treatments, ensuring optimal health and mobility. Trust our experienced team for personalized care and innovative solutions. Schedule your appointment today!

[lilalilan]

Putting this in it's own post to not detract but like. There is no such thing as sugar addiction.

If you aren't eating carbs/sugars, your body craves those things because it needs them. Your body depends on sugar for energy, and if you aren't consuming enough you're going to crave it so that you eat and correct the deficiency, just like with anything else your body needs.

If you are eating carbs/sugars regularly, especially if it feels like you can never get enough of them and it feels like you're addicted, please get checked out for diabetes mellitus.

What diabetes mellitus boils down to is the body being unable to process sugar, either because it doesn't make insulin (type 1) or because it can't use the insulin it makes (type 2). Insulin is a hormone the body needs in order to use the sugar in your blood. This leads to high blood sugar levels, weight gain, being thirsty often/drinking a lot of water, and frequent urination, because the body can't get the sugar out of the bloodstream so either stores it as fat or gets rid of it in urine (and has you drink a lot of water to make that happen).

Diabetics don't crave sugar because they're addicts who can't get control of themselves, they crave sugar because their body desperately needs it but is struggling to use what they're giving it, because it's having issues with insulin.

Going in for a diabetes diagnosis can be scary and stressful, usually due to the stigma and fatphobia/fatshaming diabetes patients often have to deal with. A lot of people are uneducated about diabetes and see it as a punishment for eating unhealthily, and if you have or have had this view in the past it can be really upsetting and scary to think that you might be diabetic. Despite what the stigma may have led you to believe, diabetes is often in large part genetic, and people who are predisposed to it can have it triggered by anything from stress to covid to seemingly nothing at all. But even if you did cause your diabetes or make it worse by eating a lot of sugar/carbs, you deserve compassion and you deserve care, you deserve accurate information about how your body does/doesn't work, and you deserve treatment free from judgement and blame.

Diabetes is manageable, it is something you can live with. Diet and exercise can help, but in the long term even folks who've made lifestyle changes usually need medication, because lifestyle changes don't change the fact that your body is struggling to make/use insulin.

For something relatively common, diabetes isn't well understood by most people, and the actual symptoms of it are often overlooked because of that. Hunger even after eating, especially after eating carbs/sugar, and constantly craving carbs/sugars, was what led my doctor to assess me for diabetes, so if that's something you struggle with please consider looking into diabetes.

[diabetes-health-corner]

How uncontrolled diabetes can lead to nerve damage and limb amputation

The insulin deficiency and resultant increase in glucose in the person’s blood can result in several complications in the person’s system – particularly in the nerves, blood vessels, kidneys, heart, vision and limbs.

Read more to know the details: https://www.freedomfromdiabetes.org/blog/post/how-uncontrolled-diabetes-can-lead-to-nerve-damage-and-limb-amputation/3000

[livewellandbetter]

How Diabetes Affects Your Feet (Diabetic Foot) - Identifying Diabetic Fo...

[scientia-rex]

Wound Care

Ok so, take this with a BIG grain of salt, because I may be a medical doctor BUT you need to know how much wound care training we get in medical school: none. Zip. Zilch. There may be medical schools where you do, but mine wasn't a bozo factory and there was NO wound care training. Everything I know I learned from one of several sources: an intensive 2-day wound care course I did in residency (highly recommend), the local Home Health wound care nurse (highly recommend), a completely batshit insane old white male doctor who started our learning sessions by yelling Vietnam War stories at me (do not recommend), a hospital wound care nurse (highly recommend), and experience (oh god do not recommend).

The first thing you need to know is that wound healing varies dramatically across the course of a lifespan. Kids? Kids will heal. If they don't, get their ass to a pediatrician because there's something genetic going on. Young adults will heal. Middle-aged adults will heal. You know who doesn't heal for shit? The elderly, and people with severe illnesses, and people with uncontrolled type II diabetes.

Your body needs several things in order to heal. It needs macronutrients, so you need to be able to EAT protein, fat, and carbs. If you are on total parenteral nutrition, aka TPN, aka IV nutrition, you are going to be worse at healing. If you are starving yourself, you are going to be worse at healing. If your body is desperately funneling all the calories you take in to surviving your COPD or cancer, you are going to be worse at healing.

It also needs micronutrients. If your diet sucks, you won't heal. Take a multivitamin once in a while.

There are two CRITICAL skin components to healing: collagen and elastin. Guess what we stop making as we age. Promoting collagen isn't just good for "anti-aging," it's good for NOT ripping your skin apart. Taking oral collagen is probably bullshit because your body is going to have to disassemble it to get it across the intestinal membranes to absorb, but it's also harmless, and if your diet REALLY sucks, who knows. Give it a try. Collagen is made of amino acids; think protein.

Another absolutely crucial component is blood flow. As people age, they start to develop cholesterol plaques lining arteries that eventually pick up calcium deposits. This makes blood vessels less elastic, which is a problem, but eventually also blocks them off, which is a much bigger problem. If someone has the major blood flow to their feet decreased by 90% by arterial stenosis, they are not going to heal for shit AND their foot's gonna hurt.

One component of blood flow I hadn't thought about before going into medicine is fluid retention. The way your body works, blood exits the heart at a very high velocity, but slows to a crawl by the time it gets into capillaries, the smallest blood vessels in the body. Water is a very small molecule and can leave the blood vessel, especially if there aren't big, negatively-charged molecules like proteins like albumin in the blood vessels to hold the water there. And we're built for this--some water is supposed to leak out of our blood vessels when it gets to real little vessels. It gets taken back up by the lymphatic system and eventually dumped back into the bloodstream at the inferior vena cava. But if you aren't making albumin--for instance, in liver failure--you may leak a LOT of fluid into the tissue, so much that your legs get swollen, tight, the skin feeling woody and strange. This isn't fixable by drainage because the fluid is everywhere, not in a single pocket we can drain. And because it puts so much pressure on the tissues of the skin, it often results in ulcers. Congestive heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure--these are all common causes of severe edema, aka swelling due to fluid in the tissues. And they're a real bitch when it comes to wound care, because we have such limited resources for getting the fluid back out, which is a necessary first step to healing.

Pressure is another common cause of wounds. Pressure forces blood out of those little capillaries, so you starve the cells normally fed by those capillaries, and they die. It's called pressure necrosis. Very sick people who can't turn themselves over--people in the ICU, people in nursing homes--are especially prone to these wounds, as are people with limited sensation; pressure wounds are common in wheelchair users who have lost some feeling in the parts of their bodies that rub against those surfaces, or diabetics who don't notice a rock in their shoe.

So, if you're trying to treat wounds, the questions to ask are these:

Why did this wound happen?

-Was it pressure? If it's pressure, you have to offload the source of the pressure or else that wound will not heal. End of story. You can put the tears of a unicorn on that thing, if you don't offload the pressure it won't heal.

-Was it fluid? If it's fluid, you have get the fluid out of the issues or else it won't heal. You can sometimes do that with diuretics, medications that cause the body to dump water through the kidneys, but that's always threading a needle because you have to get someone to a state where they still have juuuuust enough fluid inside their blood vessels to keep their organs happy, while maintaining a very slight state of dehydration so the blood vessels suck water back in from the tissues. You can use compression stockings to squeeze fluid back into the vessels, but if they have arterial insufficiency and not just venous insufficiency, you can accidentally then cause pressure injury. The safest option is using gravity: prop the feet up above the level of the heart, wherever the heart is at, at that moment, and gravity will pull fluid back down out of the legs. Super boring though. Patients hate it. Not as much as they hate compression stockings.

-Was it a skin tear because the skin is very fragile? This is extremely common in the elderly, because they're not making collagen and elastin, necessary to repairing skin. If this is the case, make sure they're actually getting enough nutrition--as people get into their 80s and 90s, their appetites often change and diminish, especially if they're struggling with dementia. And think about just wrapping them in bubble wrap. Remove things with sharp edges from their environments. I have seen the WORST skin tears from solid wood or metal furniture with sharp edges. Get rid of throw rugs and other tripping hazards. I had somebody last week who tried to a clear a baby gate and damn near destroyed their artificial hip.

The next critical question: why isn't it healing?

-Are you getting enough nutrients? Both macro and micro?

-Are you elderly?

-Are you ill?

-Do you have a genetic disorder of collagen formation?

Fix why it's not healing and almost anything will heal. If you're diabetic, find a medication regimen that improves your sugars and stick to it. If you're anorexic, get treatment for your eating disorder. If you have congestive heart failure, work with your doctor on your fluid balance. Wear the damn pressure stockings. Prop up your feet.

If, after those two unskippable questions are done, you want to do something to the wound--apply a dressing, do a treatment--that's a whole other kettle of fish. I'll write that later. The dryer just sang me its little song and I need to put away the laundry.

[marumaruz-haikyuu-agere]

Hq disability Headcanons

A somewhat detailed list of my haikyuu medical headcanons

Nishinoya Yuu - Type 1 diabetes and sensory neuropathy

Was diagnosed at 5

Inherited from parents

Prefers an insulin pump to insulin injections

Diabetes causes his sensory neuropathy

Nerve damage in his arms causing bruises because he can't tell when to stop practicing

Kenma Kozume - Hearing loss in both ears, noise damage

Plays games and music with the volume too high causing damage from all the years he's been doing it

Doesn't like to admit that he has hearing problems

Uses CIC (Completely In the Canal) hearing aids because they're small and unnoticeable

Also uses his hair to cover them because even when he knows they're hard to see he's still pretty self-conscious about them

Tendou Satori - Vitamin B deficiency, Motor Neuropathy, Audhd

Tendou has a vitamin B12 deficiency which results in him developing peripheral neuropathy, more specifically motor neuropathy

It causes him muscle spasms/twitching and gives him a barely noticeable foot drop

I think he has Audhd and struggles with paying attention and wanting to move around a lot

He doesn't have a specific hyperfixation exactly but is full of lots of little facts about lots of things

Hinata Shoyo - Audhd, Dyspraxia

I don't think i really need to explain Hinata's Audhd but I will anyways

It's one of the reasons he has so much energy while he's practicing, because he already struggles with staying still but also because it's one of his special interests

It helps him more if things are explained at the speed his brainis going instead of going slowly

I think he has Dyspraxia too because it explains a lot of his struggles in volleyball

It also ties into why the quick attack pair works so well because Hinata has to focus less on getting everything right himself and can put his attention into his motor skills

Oikawa Tooru - Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is pretty common

It causes joint pain and stiffness in most cases

And it's most common in places like the knees

It's usually from old age but in Oikawa's case it's from trying to play after an injury without letting it fully heal

But he refuses to admit that he has a problem

Kageyama Tobio - Dyslexia

He's incredibly dyslexic

Nobody knows though, everyone just thinks he's really dumb

He has consulted someone about it unfortunately he talked to Hinata who also has mild dyslexia mixed with the fact that his eyes won't stay on one point on his page

They both think that letters and numbers do that for everyone and that they just haven't figured out how to read it properly

Ushijima Wakatoshi - Autism

Definitely autistic

Pretty high functioning though

He's pretty slow on some social cues but the basic ones have been worked out in his brain

He has quite a high tolerance for most stuff but he's not the biggest fan of messing up schedules

Tsukishima Kei - Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Was partially inherited because Akiteru showed signs of it but not enough for a diagnosis

I think he specifically has cEDS (Classical EDS) because it fits him the most

I think he's been pretty used to his joints dislocating sometimes but doesn't realise that everyoen else around him isn't

The first time Yachi saw it she almost fainted

Particularly with cEDS people have easily bruised/breakable skin on their forehead, knees, shins and elbows

He has a few pretty big scars on his knees and shins from when he was a kid

They're also quite wide because with cEDS wounds heal quite slowly and leave wide scars

Bokuto Koutaro - Borderline Personality Disorder

This wasn't originally my idea (He wasn't actually going to be on here but it got pointed out to me yesterday)

BPD comes in four stages, Emotional instability, Disturbed patterns of thinking, Impulsive behaviour and Unstable relationships

With emotional instability it's usually intense negative emotions and severe mood swings which could contribute to his 'emo modes'

During disturbed patterns of thinking he'd get upsetting thoughts (like his emo mode) and hallucinations and distressing thoughts that he can't be talked out of

Impulsive behaviour is one i think he has less negatively but it's commonly negative in most cases

His impulsive behaviours are less harmful to himself and others

Unstable relationships are when he attaches himself to someone and I think that person/people would be Akaashi and Kuroo

Them trying to leave him would not go well, it's why he contacts them all the time because he doesn't like the feeling that they might leave him

[podiatrycentersmaryland]

Are you suffering from diabetic foot problems or need a podiatrist in Greenbelt? Visit immediately at Podiatry Centers of Maryland a certified clinic that provides complete treatment for foot, ankle, and lower leg problems including bunions, ingrown toenails, diabetic foot problems, or peripheral neuropathy. We have a team of podiatrists who are specialists in providing the best foot and ankle care possible in order to help you achieve health, wellness, and pain-free living. Contact us now at 844-436-6863 to schedule an appointment. 

[astrobiscuits]

Chiron: where is our physical (and mental) wound?

I'm currently reading a book about Chiron (did you know it's actually half asteroid, half comet? me neither), which inspired me to make this post. I'm in no way an expert in medical astrology, just a curious owl that wants to learn more about every branch of astrology out there (my Sag Venus loves it!!🤭)

DISCLAIMER!!! I'm not a doctor. If you've been feeling any symptoms described here, TALK WITH YOUR DOCTOR, NOT WITH ME

Observation: Before we dive in, i'd like to mention that the position of Chiron in the houses is important. Not every house placement suggests having a poor physical condition. The most prominent Chiron placements when it comes to having a medical condition are: Chiron in 1st house (house of self, visible illnesses), Chiron in 5th house (illnesses since birth/early childhood), Chiron in 6th house (house of health, if Saturn is also sitting there it points to chronic illnesses), Chiron in 8th house (house of death, may point to severe diseases or poor reproductive health) and Chiron in 12th house (house of the unconscious, deals with mental illnesses)

Honorable mention to Chiron in 3rd house and Chiron in 9th house as they represent accidents while travelling. If Chiron is heavily afflicted in these houses (unless it's also conjuncting Jupiter), it may point to...let's just say you're gonna be in a hospital bed in a vegetative state, but remember, nothing has a 100% possibility of happening, you're just more susceptible to it happening. I suggest checking the position of Chiron in Solar Return charts for the possible timing of it happening (look for Chiron in 3rd house/Chiron in 9th house as it activates your natal Chiron)

Without further do, let's dive in⚕️

Chiron in Aries: frequent headaches, frequent nose bleeds, teeth problems (sensitive teeth, tooth decay), deafness, skull fractures, cerebral anemia, brain tumours, hemophilia, epilepsy, BPD

Chiron in Taurus: frequent colds, frequent voice loss, thyroid problems (goiter, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidis, etc.), tonsilitis, OCD

Chiron in Gemini: lung problems (asthma, tuberculosis, pneumonia, etc.), speech problems (stuttering, cluttering, mutism), alzheimer's disease, ADHD, OCD

Chiron in Cancer: frequent stomach pain, prone to lactose intolerance, (for girls) breast lumps, breast cysts, breast infections, nipple discharge, depression, anxiety

Chiron in Leo: prone to insolation, frequent heart palpitations, chest pain, hypertension, hypotension, arteriosclerosis, scoliosis, kyphosis

Chiron in Virgo: frequent bloating, prone to gluten intolerance, chronic allergies, diabetes, rabies, autism, ADHD, OCD

Chiron in Libra: prone to acne, frequent lower back pain, disc herniation, spondylolisthesis, chronic kidney disease, kidney stones

Chiron in Scorpio: frequent pain down there, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV/AIDS, depression

Chiron in Sagittarius: frequent pain in the hips, prone to hips dislocation, cirrhosis, sciatica

Chiron in Capricorn: prone to knees dislocation, osteoarthritis, bone problems (osteopenia, osteoporosis), gout, depression

Chiron in Aquarius: electrical injuries, shin splints, osteofibrous dysplasia, ankle sprain, ankle fractures, poor blood circulation, schizophrenia

Chiron in Pisces: prone to break toes, athlete's foot, bunions, addison's disease, hormonal deregulation, aphantasia, psychosis, schizophrenia, anxiety

Yes, i'm aware of the fact that it's a generational planet and it moves very slowly through signs

BONUS: It's important to take into consideration all planets that conjunct, square or opposite Chiron (regardless if they're personal or generational) + the Ascendant for additional info about our illnesses

Ex. Let's take me as an example. My Chiron is in my 10th house in Capricorn squaring Saturn in 4th house (so double Capricorn energy) and Aries Ascendant. Guess what? I've got TMJ (basically a jaw disorder affecting the joints) and i've got it from my fam -_- (Saturn rules tradition i love my fam)

I also believe that having a heavy afflicted Chiron in general makes someone prone to having a medical condition, even if it's not in the houses mentioned previously (like in my case). However, these people are more focused on the main meaning of the house, not their health problems. They tend to ignore their health problems or they just don't care

I hope you enjoyed my post and found it insightful :)

What's your wound? Lmk in the comments your placements and your illnesses

Kisses xoxo

[appalachiananarchist]

The 15 minute clinic visit model should be considered a crime. Do you really think you can adequately address a patient's A1C of 11.5 (while they refuse to adhere to a diabetic diet or take their meds, so you have to explain why these things are important and that no, Metformin did not cause Uncle John to develop Rheumatoid Arthritis), blood pressure of 187/98, ongoing chest pains, chronic back pain, inability to sleep, explain to them what it means to have chronic kidney disease and what meds they need to avoid + go through their current meds to renally dose them, update their foot and eye exam, and talk about changing the medications for their bipolar disorder... in 15 minutes?

Keep in mind the patient keeps interrupting to tell you about their sister Shirley's birthday party and ask irrelevant questions like, "Hey doc, is it true going outside in the cold gets you sick? Is it true babies don't have bones?"

Oh, and the patient reminds you as you think you're wrapping up that they need you to check their shoulder because they fell on it yesterday and also they think they have a sinus infection...and then you remember you haven't reviewed their health maintenance gaps yet, either.

The above is not a hyperbole. This is the average patient I see in my clinic as a rural family medicine doctor. I have people fitting this profile scheduled every 15 minutes because it is our health system's standard policy. It makes me furious because these patients deserve to have all of their issues addressed, but it is not possible. They taken time off work, some of them driving over an hour, to see me. These are serious problems and serious misunderstandings that deserve my full attention for as long as is required, not to have me rush, half addressing their concerns or not addressing them at all.

We can't be doctors in this system. We are just little reimbursement machines.

And the icing on the cake: after you talk to the patient and finally compromise on medications the patient agrees to take, the insurance company denies them all.

[squishy-squish-deathfeeder]

You are an immortal being, vampiric, (perhaps slightly cannibalistic). You spend the ages finding potential piggies across the country. All pigs of all sorts, you find your next victim and destroy them. Maybe once you choose a fit, healthy guy if you want a challenge, just to see him break and weaken and fade. Maybe the next, you pick a weak, meek, naive, pig that will be like instant putty in your hands to shape. Maybe you just pick someone no one will miss just so you can experiment and try out new things. But every time, they are transformed from a normal functioning adult into a mindless, gorging blob. All of them made into dumb fattening pigs, so horny and wanting for more. Some fight and fight hard against your charms and seduction, but all break in the end, even if the pig needs a fun cocktail of drugs to turn it permanently docile and vacant. And you just sit back and watch, humiliate, ridicule, encourage, praise, affirm, and love one blob after another descend from the intelligence of humanity into helpless sacks of lard. When they health problems got too much, sometimes if you were bored with a pig, you would watch them suffer until they died so that you could get it over with and move on to the next, but sometimes you’d try to prolong your favorite ones. If the diabetes required a foot, you’d happily comply and remove it. They usually, at that point, aren’t using their feet much anymore, so might as well make room for more fattening. Maybe sometimes for fun you’d even remove their other foot and even hands. Just to turn them into truly helpless globs of flesh. Unable to stop you or fight back. And under your hypnotic charms they don’t even realize they lost the ability to speak, they can’t remember their names or where they came from, in fact if you told them they had been there with you their whole lives, they’d believe you. There was nothing outside this. Nothing outside you. You are all there is. You are the provider. You give love and pleasure and food. You are good. You are all. They will fall under your control and spell every time eventually. Always an achievement when a tough, fighter finally snaps and their brain breaks permanently and they are essentially lobotomized. The looks of rage and anger slowly erode to nothing more than dumb horny cross eyes glazed over vacancy. From a person to a pig, a human to a hog. Nothing but your plaything. You aren’t sure when, but at some point over the ages, you lost your own humanity and hardly see them as people anymore. No hopes dreams goals or ambitions. They are all always just cattle. And when you feel like culling, you don’t hold back. The peasant starving on the road was no more or less of a person to you than the famous influencer that strangely disappeared and stopped posting one day, they were all nothing but playthings for you to enjoy and pass time with. All for fun. Their lives don’t matter. They may protest in the beginning, but you don’t hear much complaints from them so they must like it too, you reason. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Nothing will stop you once you’ve identified your next victim.

Lots of good little stories to be played out with this scenario

Cruel cakes is undoubtedly a fitting name for you. Your planning and details for intricate stories or even small snippets are incredibly interesting with cruel, fattening twist and turns. We'll make wonderful useage of these ideas, I promise you. Thank you unbelievably so, darling.

[createyourownnarrative]

Usually I try not to post too much about Long Covid on my regular FB feed. I’ve learned to just not do it. It’s best I save those posts for my support groups where I can get the support I need from people going through the same struggle.

But I need to get this off my chest.

I always knew I wanted to be an artist. I dabbled in many mediums over the years, photography, music, painting, film/media, writing, I’ve made sculptures. I truly enjoy expressing myself through various art forms, and connecting with others through that.

In 2010-2011, after years of working job after job trying to find my passion (when most of my friends were already college graduates with direction) and feeling a little lost, in the retail industry, I put my foot down, went back to school and chose a medium, & decided to pursue THAT. One medium I truly always loved: Photography. In 2012, I exhibited my work for the first time. In 2020 I opened up my first photo studio. A creative space where I can share and make memories. 1 month later, a global pandemic overturns our worlds and realities. I never would have imagined, that, in our lifetime. You just don’t think it could happen to you (to us). But it did. It’s still so surreal to me.

I got sick with Covid twice. I knew some people who had covid over 4-8 times. I had it twice. It only took that first bout with the virus to completely change my life. My body. My mind. My worries. My perspective. My whole world. And my future. I thought I almost had it figured out, my path, my plans, my goals. What I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go. Who I wanted to be. Now i’m grateful that I make it through my day, without collapsing. (which has happened and was very scary). My last two photography jobs, I couldn’t feel my hands. It’s why I’ve been so inactive, since I got sick. Whats going to happen when I can’t take pictures anymore?

When I tested positive for the first time, I cried in the cab ride home. I was beyond terrified. What will this mean? Will I survive this? What is going to happen. I thought if I can get through the virus and live, that’s all I could want. Some months before, I had lost a high school friend, a fellow musician, to Coronavirus. He was only 32 years old. We didn’t know what would happen. Who was at risk of death. After 9 or 10 days, with the virus. I tested negative, and returned to work. Feeling good, that I survived. Especially after day 4, when I woke up gasping for air in the night. I feared I wouldn’t wake up. I got blamed for testing positive by people around me. It was “my fault”. For “not being careful”. I felt so alienated. After I returned to work, I was preparing to move, packing, organizing, purging. One day, I could not get out of bed. And strange heavy symptoms. I thought I had Covid again. Of course the test came back negative.

But I would never be the same again. I never fully recovered from getting sick. Stuck back in 2020.

Do you know what it’s like? I see the world moving on. Almost like it never happened. Our government lying and covering up facts/truth. We are still sick. Still here. 18 million people in America are still sick with Post Covid syndrome. I’m left to feel like it’s my fault..I’m to blame. Because I “didn’t take care of myself.” Would you say that to someone with cancer? Or fibromyalgia? Or heart problems? Or Alzheimer’s? Or diabetes? Or any other illness? The stigma I’m (and we are) facing is unreal. People don’t believe me when I say “I still can’t taste and smell” and that I’m chronically ill now. “You don’t look sick”. “It’s because you party too much”. “you’re getting older” “it’s all those long nights you work on your feet”. I’ve heard it all. “But I see you at the bar working”. I have to work. There is no disability, go fund me, or assistance. I have to pay my rent. On my own. So I need to work. But just because you see me, at work, doesn’t mean I’m well. It just means I’m pushing myself to stay alive. It’s been true torture working through all this. I mourn and grieve for weeks and months at a time. It hasn’t stopped. It took me a long time, to accept that this is not going away anytime soon.

And my heart is broken. I feel left out in the rain. By our leaders, scientists, doctors, friends I thought I had. There is no community support. Even if someone believes you’re sick. No funding/fundraisers for LC. There is no cure, no pill, no treatment, no progress in finding treatment or biomarkers in the body to be able to even test for LC. The unpredictability of it. The symptoms. It’s really been torturous. Torture. A true nightmare. Having to sit in the shower so I don’t fall. Or hit my head (again) Doubling heart rate just upon standing. I get winded just talking and singing karaoke. I forget everything now. I slur my speech, sober. Tremors like Parkinsonism. My memory loss and constant issues feel like dementia-brain fog. I forget how to spell now. my hands turn purple red and blue when I step out of the shower. Migraines that last for months. Months. I take Tylenol like it’s medication. Neuropathy, nerve pain, nerve itches, tingling and numbness. My body temperature can’t regulate, so I often am cold and hot simultaneously. How do you remedy that? The discomfort and distress I feel is unbearable. Loosing clumps of hair. My hair is greying more and more rapidly post covid. Brittle nails. Skin issues. Digestive issues. Eye problems. Cognitive difficulties. Joint pain. Muscle pain. Muscle atrophy. Weakness. Severe severe fatigue. Almost like you worked out at the gym, full body then took a benadryl. Every. Fucking. Day. I’m tired of being so fucking tired. Before Covid, people would always have to tell me to slow down. Working full time, school, internships, photography, going to the gym full time. I always took on so much. I had so much energy and drive. It was a fire in me.

Now it’s gone. A piece of me has died, undoubtedly. And I question everything now. Most days I’m afraid to leave my house. And don’t. Unless it’s to work. If I do leave my house, it’s because I’m pushing myself, and I’m not well. My anxiety and depression are much worse. Chronic illness has also taken its toll on my mental health. It’s been draining trying to keep up with the world. I feel left behind. I’m not only mourning my health, and my abilities, but my passion in life, the one thing I worked so hard for. My future. And Photography. What do I do, if I can’t create anymore? What purpose do I have?

No one believes me, or think LC exists. And if I don’t “show up”, it’s because “she’s a flake”. I’m in such a dark place you may never understand. How do I navigate this life? Being sick every day.