Hi Everyone!
Thank you, everyone, for your support, comments, upvotes, and features on other steem pages, you have all been so kind and I can't thank you all enough!!
My previous posts were about my art and books, the projects I have and will be sharing with all of you. Today's post, however, will be about me and my chronic health and a bit about my YouTube channel 'That Crohn's Chick'.
For those who don't know me, my name is Sharnii and I'm a 26-year-old living in Adelaide, South Australia. I have had many chronic health issues in my lifetime from simple stuff like hayfever and eczema as a kid to irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn's disease as an adult. I was diagnosed with IBS and IBD around 4 years ago, but it is suspected that I had these issues long before then as it can take years to get a proper diagnosis unfortunately and ever since I have spent the most part of that time trying to understand my diseases and how to better manage them.
Unfortunately, there is no cure for either of these issues or for the anemia and now a secondary autoimmune issue affecting my muscles and joints which they are in the process of diagnosing. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. Many don't know about these diseases, and for those who do, they don't know much about how they work and how they affect the body. One of the biggest issues besides being chronically ill is feeling like no one understands or can help you and the loneliness and isolation breeds serious mental health issues that are always missed when medically treating chronic disease.
This is where my YouTube channel comes in.
I have created a channel that is there to educate not only those suffering from IBD but for anyone that suffers a hidden disease or knows someone who does and wishes to better support them on their journey with chronic illness. By creating this educational channel and sharing my story I seek to bring hidden diseases out into the open and to create a community of online chronic health sufferers that can mentor and support each other.
The platforms I will be posting my videos to will be here on steem, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and discord and they can all be found by searching 'That Crohn's Chick. If you want to know more about my story click the link below, otherwise check out my channel for all sorts of videos on IBD, IBS, Mental Health and more. My channel is still a work in progress and the launch and schedule for my videos will be happening towards the end of the week :)
Love Your Guts
You'll do just fine here. :) There's lots of people documenting their tribulations. Those who are more articulate tend to do better. :)
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You're going to get along just fine in the steemverse. We are big on community here and I love what you're doing.
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Thank you :)
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You're so young to be having to deal with these things. I have a friend, who's in her 50s, and she has a few autoimmune disorders. They didn't develop until later in life than yours, at least not to the severity they got. A few years ago she said she reached a point where her memory and cognitive reasoning left her practically incapable of doing anything.
As a last resort she turned to changing her diet and natural therapies. She's completely gluten intolerant, probably celiacs, but testing for it requires her to be eating it for three months, which would cripple her. She has severe reactions to chemicals and mould. She eats mostly paleo to cut out all the foods that she reacts to. Her one treat is A2 milk and cheese, which she says she probably shouldn't eat, but they don't make her severely ill and you only live once!
She still gets good and bad days, but for the most part the brain fog has lifted, she doesn't always get a migraine at the slightest whiff of chemicals now. Even in the year and a half that I've known her she's shown some improvements. Some things she's just learnt to deal with and know her limits, like the arthritis.
I'm in awe of people like you guys who constantly have this going on under the surface, yet still, somehow, function as best you can.
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My god, im so sorry to hear about your friend, automimmune diseases is still so new, only been around for just under 100 years, theres so littlw they know about it, it makes it hard to manage as a sufferer. Im glad to hear your friend took her illness in to her own hands and has made changes to improve her life as best as she can, its an inspiration to others like me on those days where you just feel like you can't keep doing it anymore. Thank you so much for your kind words, its very much appreciated :)
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I believe she'd feel very happy to think that she has inspired someone else.
Love and strength to you to always keep getting back up and fighting.
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