Living with a chronic health condition or long-term illness can have a massive impact on your life, and it is thought around 129 million Americans currently have at least one long-term health condition that impacts their life.
From autoimmune conditions of the heart condition, cancers, or pain-related issues such as arthritis, it’s no fun living in pain every day and struggling to live your life as you did before you got ill.
But just because it’s harder doesn’t mean there isn’t anything you can do. Advocating for yourself can help ensure you are getting the care and treatment you need to improve your life and ease symptoms as much as possible.
But how do you advocate for yourself?
Know Your Condition
Knowing your chronic health condition inside and out can allow you to uncover everything there is to know. This can open up many new avenues you might not have realized, such as treatment options, triggers, dietary choices that can improve your illness, and much more. Knowing it means you can understand it more, dive into how your life affects it and vice versa, and consider what you can do medically to help yourself, be it asking for plasmapheresis treatment, tests, or anything else that can make your life better.
Make Healthy Changes
Advocating for yourself means you are making the right changes in the right way, and you first address how you live your life. You need to make as many changes to support your health as possible, including changing your diet to a more nutritious one, drinking more water, getting as much exercise as you possibly can, and anything else that will impact your health so that when you are fighting for treatment or discussing your options with your doctors, you can remove this motion as you have already implemented it.
Find The Right People
Part of the battle of living with a chronic condition can be having the right people in your corner. This means not being afraid to change healthcare providers if they don’t support you. Not all doctors are equal, and if you don’t feel happy with the care you are receiving, find someone who can offer you what you need and has a history of supporting people in the same position as you so you know they get it, understand, and will help you.
Find A Support Group or Charity
Having the backing of others living with the same condition as you or a charity that also advocates for people in your position can be a great way to get the help and advice you need to arm yourself with as much information as possible. These organizations are set up solely to help people, and connecting with them and taking any help they can offer and also giving any help to them you can offer is a great way to advocate for your care and treatment and support yourself moving forward.
Living with a chronic illness isn’t easy, nor is it fun. Being able to advocate for yourself can help you get the care and support you need.
