30 day chronic illness challenge

Day 9: Have you ever tried any alternative therapies? Did they help?

I have been using essential oils and vitamins that contain essential oils for about a year now, and I have seen a marked difference in my energy levels!

Day 1::

Hi My name's Liz.

Currently I have PCOS and Hypothyroidism. Both of those were diagnosed around the same time in 2014. I also have mild Eczema that was diagnosed when I was in high school.

Day 9: Have you ever tried any alternate therapies? .If so , What ? Did they work ?

One of the doctors I was seeing suggested I speak to a therapist friend of his regarding pain management. I saw one and that was the best decision I have ever made in my life. She helped me to accept my pain and unload lots of hidden baggages that I have been holding on to. In many ways, she gave me hope and lovingly kindled in me a strong trust in the process of life . Also , I stopped appyling commercial skin creams .I switched to VCO and it really helps.

Day 2

All three of these affect my life , some more than others. With hypothyroidism, I can get extremely tired during the middle of the day if I forgot to take my medicine. Then I would accidentally take a long nap and not get things done! It also sometimes makes me feel really sluggish and I have a really hard time losing weight, which is a real pain in the ass. I didn't know until I was disagnosed just how much the thyroid gland takes care of things in your body.

PCOS doesn't directly negatively affect me all that much, except the fact that I now have to be on birth control because I didn't have any periods for an ENTIRE year. But it's not a big thing because I currently don't want to get pregnant right now anyway sooo...

Lastly, with eczema, it pops up every now and then. Right now I have it mildly on the inside of my elbow, but I've been using cream to keep it from flaring up too bad. The one thing I know I must avoid though, is washing my hands too much. That can cause a really bad breakout of hand eczema that I have to get prescription topical creams for, and it hurts SO bad.

Day 18

No, I don't think being ill has made me a better person. There might be some things I can understand better than if I was healthy. Having medication has changed how I treat those close to me. With the mood changes I could be pleasant for a while but eventually I would end up lashing out at my family. So in that way I think it made me a worse person. Knowing what is going on plus having the medication means I no longer start stupid arguments with my husband (mostly :D).

Day 1:

Hello, my name is Liza. I have type 1 diabetes. I was diagnosed on June 23, 2014, so it's been a little over a year and a half.

Day 3

I was starting to get a little worried that I just wasn't menstrating at all, especially when it got to the end of the year and still nothing! At first I remember just being irregular, where there would be about three months in between each cycle. But gradually they just stopped altogether. When I worked up the nerve to talk to my grandmother about it, she said that it was definitely not normal and I should figure out what's going on as soon as possible.

There's a Student Wellness Center at the university I go to, and I was given two different blood tests, one to check for Thyroid hormone problems, and the other to check for high testosterone (don't know the official name for that test but yeah...). It turned out that I had a really high number of androgens and my TSH levels were high as well. So I was officially put on medication to help with these problems. I have to go in every once in a while to keep checking my TSH levels.

Day 2:

Diabetes completely turned my entire world upside down. I was all of a sudden given a huge responsibility, a bag of needles, insulin and some beeping devices. I went from never thinking twice about what I ate to counting every carb and worry about if I was giving too much or too little insulin. However, the hardest part of type one hasn't been the needles, the pricks, the counting, or the constant ups and downs. The hardest part of diabetes has been the emotional effects it's had on me. I became an extremely anxious person, I became more hopless and depressed, I felt more alone than I ever had in my entire life.

I became anxious over whether I would wake up the next morning or if I would die in my sleep from low blood sugar. I was hopeless and depressed over the fact that I am now subject to serious complications down the road if I can't keep my numbers in check now. My eyesight has already decreased significantly in the past year and a half since diagnosis. Going blind is pretty common with diabetes, and that is absolutely terrifying. I have been so lonely through this, as most people do not understand my invisible illness. Most people don't understand the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and generally assume they know what my life is like because they saw their grandma check her blood sugar once or see overweight people on TV talking about how they can't eat this or that and they have to exercise to take care of their diabetes. Even my closest friends and family have NO clue what I go through and deal with on a daily basis, and it's so frustrating and isolating.

Day 10: What little things make your life easier?

✿Not having so much homework so I can actually go to bed on tiime

✿Easy access to quality food so as to not exacerbate the headaches

✿Medications not suddenly stop working

✿Medications not forcing me to oversleep which means I wake up with a migraine that I have to take the medication for -> goes in a circle

Sorry guys, I guess you could say I'm slightly irritated today so these are the little things that are on my mind

Day 3: