I felt waves of feelings (concern, reduction, validation) earlier than anger set in. My years-long mysterious situation was a full-fledged epidemic affecting 1 in 5 Individuals, and I needed to shout it from the rooftops so others wouldn’t should undergo this, too.
New to TikTok, I posted a video concerning the signs I used to be informed had been “regular” that turned out to be indicators of autoimmune illness. To my shock, it racked up thousands and thousands of views in a matter of hours, and 1000’s of feedback from girls reaching out with eerily comparable experiences.
Search #autoimmunedisease on TikTok and also you’ll get a really actual and terrifying snapshot of this epidemic’s stronghold on girls in America: over 1.1B video views, and numerous thumbnails that includes the faces of twenty- and thirty-somethings similar to me. We’re turning to TikTok for the autoimmune help our medical system isn’t giving us.
The autoimmune epidemic disproportionately wreaks havoc on girls – 80% of sufferers are girls1, and sure circumstances are 16 instances extra widespread1 in girls. They’re one of many high 10 causes of dying for girls underneath 64. Regardless of all of this, autoimmune illness stays largely neglected and misdiagnosed by healthcare professionals. On common, we’ve got to see 5 completely different docs and wait practically half a decade earlier than receiving the proper prognosis. Nearly half of us are informed our signs are all in our head sooner or later alongside the way in which.
It was no coincidence when my sister, Claire, was identified with autoimmune illness months later. She had comparable, hard-to-pinpoint signs, regular labs, and dismissals from varied docs.
Getting wholesome once more shortly grew to become a full-time job for each of us. We threw ourselves into studying all the things there was to learn about these ailments, and what evidence-based interventions would convey us essentially the most reduction. As we dove into the analysis, it grew to become abundantly clear how underserved our group was and the way desperately we wanted higher help and instruments. So we determined to staff up and left our full-time jobs to fill the foremost systemic gaps that exist in at the moment’s customary of care.
Final 12 months, we launched a digital care platform known as WellTheory to assist girls shortcut, and in the end enhance, the present path to an autoimmune prognosis and receiving care. Our objective is to extend entry to high-quality autoimmune care – making it reasonably priced, empathetic, empowering, efficient, and what we so desperately wanted from the start.
However WellTheory is only one piece of the equation to reversing autoimmune illness. Extra broadly, it takes arming girls with the assets to navigate the underneath researched and neglected well being points that have an effect on us essentially the most – from fertility and menopause to autoimmune illness and past.
