Wellness Wednesdays: What is a Chronic & Invisible Illness?

Hello lovely readers,

Today's focus is going to be around better understanding what chronic illness and invisible illnesses means. Often times they are used interchangeably or together since most invisible illnesses are chronic, but there are some distinctions to note!

What is a chronic illness?
According to the National Centre for Health Statistics a chronic illness is a disease that persists for a period longer than 3 months, usually being life-long. Generally, they cannot be prevented by vaccines, cured by medications, nor do they just disappear.

Chronic disease are the leading cause of death and disability worldwide according to WHO. According to their report in 2002, major chronic disease account for almost 60% of all deaths and 43% of the global burden of disease. They predicted by 2020 that these numbers would raise to 73% of all deaths and 60% of the global burden of disease. Even more, 79% of the death attributed to chronic diseases occurs in developing countries.

Examples of chronic illnesses include:

• Alzheimers disease
• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Cancer
• COPD
• Crohns disease
• Cystic Fibrosis
• Diabetes
• Epilepsy
• Heart Disease
• HIV/AIDs
• Mood disorders (bipolar, depression, cyclothymic)
• MS
• Parkinsons

The 4 most prominent are cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and type 2 diabetes. 

What is an invisible illness?

This is an umbrella term for any medical condition that is not visible to others, but it does exist! This includes both chronic conditions and mental illnesses. The difficulty with living with an invisible illness is the it often leads to judgement and criticism, because you look fine on the outside, so others assume you must be making it all up or "it's all in your head".

Having an illness that is invisible means that often times people face stigmas and a lack of social awareness around their sufferings. As a result, many people around them are skeptical, they get accused of being lazy or moody, and are often prescribed things like calming down, going out ore, just cheering up, or other dismissive judgements. To make things more complicated, like many chronic illness, invisible illnesses often operate on an ebb and flow system- some hours, days, months, or years go really well and other times it is extremely hard to work, socialize, and function. This is often times when we hear phrases such as "but you were just fine yesterday". 

Living with either a chronic illness or an invisible illness can be extremely difficult to navigate. Not only do you have the burden of having to figure your own problems out and understand your illness but you also have the burden of trying to get others to understand. This not only includes those who are close to us, but often times can include medical professionals as well.

Tomorrow we will be discussing how to better advocate for yourself and provide tips for people who may be newly diagnosed. We hope that this week allows people to being to feel more comfortable with starting the conversation on either side as someone with an illness or someone supporting someone with an illness.

Breaking the stigma begins with a conversation.

YWC

Resources
https://www.medicinenet.com/diabetes_mellitus/article.htm#what_is_diabetes
https://www.who.int/chp/about/integrated_cd/en/
https://www.talkspace.com/blog/what-is-invisible-illness-how-to-explain-it-to-others/