Learn more about our FREE COVID-19 Patient Support Program for chronic illness patients and their loved ones. Credit: Tatiana Ayazo If you’ve had COVID-19, you may be more likely to develop gastrointestinal disorders like heartburn or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in the year after your infection than those who were never infected, per a new study in Nature Communications.    Researchers analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs national health care databases and built a cohort of 154,068 people with COVID-19. They also created a set of more ..read more

As you’re likely far too familiar, insurance often gets complicated quickly. However, the specific fine print in your insurance around programs called accumulators and maximizers may mean the difference between being able to afford your medication or not. A copay accumulator adjuster program is a type of health insurance program that affects people using biopharmaceutical patient assistance programs, which are usually provided by a drug manufacturer to help reduce the cost of taking the medication. Accumulator programs don’t allow patient assistance through the pharmaceutical industry to co ..read more

Learn more about our FREE COVID-19 Patient Support Program for chronic illness patients and their loved ones. The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly changed the way outpatient care is delivered. When the pandemic first hit, providers deferred elective and preventive visits to help reduce the transmission of the virus. When possible, they also converted in-person visits to telemedicine visits. Patients also cancelled or delayed appointments to avoid COVID, and many utilized telehealth for the first time. Now, we’ve witnessed both — a return of in-person appointments along with the continua ..read more

Credit: Jae Walker There is a dark place where pain takes me that I will not talk to my doctor about. Not even my rheumatologist knows about this deep, intense, raw place. I have more than 11 years of 24/7 chronic pain from multiple chronic illnesses. I deal with doctors who do not have chronic pain themselves. They do not understand a four-day flare that doesn’t allow you to get out of bed. I even have doctors who treat me like a puzzle and not a person with needs and constant pain all over their body. My dark place is not a place for the weak. It’s not a place for the unmerciful or judgm ..read more

An invisible illness refers to a physical, mental, or neurological condition that cannot be seen from the outside, according to invisibledisabilties.org There are many types of invisible illnesses, including ankylosing spondylitis, fibromyalgia, psoriatic arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). If you have RA, or another type of inflammatory arthritis, you’re familiar with symptoms like pain, swelling, and stiffness in the small joints of the hands, wrists, feet, ankles, and neck, as well as fatigue and brain fog. RA can also affect other parts of the body like the lungs, heart, and ..read more

This story was told to CreakyJoints by Catina Morrison, RN, BSN, a registered nurse, chronic illness coach, patient advocate, and business consultant. Catina is the Founder and CEO of Nurse Loves Essentials, a blogger, and the host of the Inflamed Sisters Thriving Podcast.   It took over 30 years for me to get a diagnosis. From childhood I had symptoms of anemia, chronic fatigue, and chronic pain that the doctors could not explain, except for saying that it was growing pains. When it came to my endometriosis, I was told as a teenager that periods do hurt and it’ll get better with ..read more

This story was told to CreakyJoints by Catina Morrison, RN, BSN, a registered nurse, chronic illness coach, patient advocate, and business consultant. Catina is the Founder and CEO of Nurse Loves Essentials, a blogger, and the host of the Inflamed Sisters Thriving Podcast.   It took over 30 years for me to get a diagnosis. From childhood I had symptoms of anemia, chronic fatigue, and chronic pain that the doctors could not explain, except for saying that it was growing pains. When it came to my endometriosis, I was told as a teenager that periods do hurt and it’ll get better with ..read more

Learn more about our FREE COVID-19 Patient Support Program for chronic illness patients and their loved ones. Credit: Tatiana Ayazo If you’re an immunocompromised patient, you recognize just how important it is to have every mechanism of defense you can against COVID-19. A common treatment is Paxlovid, an antiviral pill that can be prescribed to those high-risk for severe COVID-19. Its importance is underscored by the fact that Evusheld, a preventive antibody treatment for the infection, is no longer recommended due to its declining efficacy against new variants. However, some patient ..read more

Health experts have long known that if you have one autoimmune/autoinflammatory disease you face an above average risk of developing another. For people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, that additional condition might very well turn out to be some type of inflammatory arthritis. Anywhere from 6 percent to 53 percent of IBD patients are believed to also have a joint disease.  To further pin down this connection as well as to learn about how patients with multiple diseases are being treated, researchers from Wayne State Univers ..read more

Credit: Tatiana Ayazo The term “gaslighting” has been buzzworthy on social media in recent years: In fact, Merriam-Webster named it the word of the year in 2022, when it saw a 1,740 percent increase in lookups. You may have even experienced a form of it in the doctor’s office. In this case, it can be dangerous if it prevents you from getting a proper diagnosis and treatment. This is especially frustrating when you’re living with an “invisible” illness that may not always manifest symptoms a doctor can see or feel. Here, we learn what medical gaslighting is, how to identify it, and ways you c ..read more