As the heading suggests, I am a sufferer of chronic illness. I hope to shed some light on a few of the things I've struggled with to be informative and show other chronically ill people that they are not alone.
I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (a connective tissue disorder.) This causes a whole slew of problems throughout my entire body. Because it is a completely genetic condition, I was born with it. I was born with a double hernia and had to have surgery to repair it at six weeks old. I didn't get a diagnosis or treatment until I was 16 because, hard as I tried to get doctors to listen to me, I was told my problems were caused by stress and my weight. I bet you can guess my sex.
I have arthritis all throughout my body, but it's the worst in my back because I have Spondyloarthritis. Before I was medicated for this in 2019, I was in horrific pain every single day. I remember one night crying my eyes out after taking out the trash in my house. My spine ached so bad I couldn't breathe. I wanted to scream.
I also deal with partial dislocations, called subluxations, daily. I've had a few full dislocations in my left knee that eventually led to me needing an MPFL reconstruction in 2021. And no, I didn't injure myself playing sports, or doing hard labor. I was just walking. After that surgery I immediately had such a huge buildup of scar tissue surrounding my knee that I couldn't even get my leg to bend to a 90° angle. I had to go back under anesthesia to have them bend my knee because of how excruciating the pain was trying to bend it on my own. It ended up building back up and I had to stretch my knee until I literally felt and heard my tissue tear apart.
After I had finally healed from that, I noticed some different symptoms start to appear. Just a few months ago, I noticed that I would go completely blind in my right eye every time I stood up or did anything that caused me to squeeze my muscles. I visited an ophthalmologist when I noticed it was getting worse, not better. The doctor ordered an MRI and a spinal tap to confirm that it was, as he correctly guessed, Intracranial Hypertension. In layman's terms, my brain produces too much spinal fluid and the built up pressure is cutting off blood flow to my optic nerves. If I had gone with my initial plan to ignore it for a bit longer, I could have permantly lost some of my eyesight.
This is just a small number of stories out of the many that I have, but I'm getting sleepy. Hopefully you learned something new if you've never dealt with these illnesses, and if you have, I hope you feel less alone.
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