Having Conditions Affecting The Digestive And Excretory Systems Is Just So Isolating.

Useful information

It's too hot to exist. 🥵

Stay safe, SpoonieStrong fam. 💙🥄

Everyone with gi issues deserves a kiss on the forehead right now

When a chronically ill or disabled person gets their lab tests back as “normal” or all clear, we aren’t sad because we WANT to be sick.

We’re sad because we *know* there’s something wrong with us, yet the scans still stay clear.

Before you kill the monster you gotta know its name.

This site comes recommended by a friend of the blog, and oh boy does it look useful! Since it’s meant for use by doctors as well, the information it will give you doesn’t go through the kinds of “for the patient” filters you’d see on sites like WebMD.

The interface is clean and simple, and once you’ve gotten a list of conditions and selected one to investigate, it opens an on-the-page window for you with the Merck Manual’s entry. There’s in-depth data, a quick-view of the highlights of the condition, and there are even links out to other providers like Mayo Clinic, Medline, WebMD, Google, and more.

What’s particularly nice is that when you’re done looking at one condition, you can click “back to results” to get straight back to the list.

This one seems to do a good job of pulling up the common but quote-unquote rare diseases in the list, which certainly makes it feel a little more trustworthy.

Nonbinary folks, do note that it requires you to enter a binary gender.

and ibs otter, which i made mostly for me lol. i really want her name to start with cy…. cypres…. cyril….. hmm

Ah yes, my favorite chronic illness game: is this normal, is this new, or am I dying?

If they claim they can cure your condition that you have been told is incurable, run. If they claim they cured themselves, run. If they claim they have cured everything from cancer to lupus holistically, run. If they claim you have to buy only supplements from them, run. If they claim they that only thing that will cure is x but x costs tons of money, run. If they refuse to run tests or address your diagnosed conditions before insisting you do an expensive treatment not covered by insurence, run. If they offer a one size fits all treatment/cure, run.

I have been scammed by "holistic" and "naturalistic" people before as a chronically ill person. In fact it was an actual doctor who went to medical school who scammed me for years. So watch out. If it seems too good to be true it probably is.