I felt waves of feelings (worry, reduction, validation) earlier than anger set in. My years-long mysterious situation was a full-fledged epidemic affecting 1 in 5 People, and I wished to shout it from the rooftops so others wouldn’t need to undergo this, too.
New to TikTok, I posted a video concerning the signs I used to be advised 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 ladies reaching out with eerily related experiences.
Search #autoimmunedisease on TikTok and also you’ll get a really actual and terrifying snapshot of this epidemic’s stronghold on ladies 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 ladies – 80% of sufferers are women1, and sure situations are 16 occasions extra common1 in ladies. They’re one of many prime 10 causes of demise for ladies underneath 64. Regardless of all of this, autoimmune illness stays largely neglected and misdiagnosed by healthcare professionals. On common, we have now to see 5 completely different medical doctors and wait almost half a decade earlier than receiving the right prognosis. Virtually half of us are advised 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 related, hard-to-pinpoint signs, regular labs, and dismissals from varied medical doctors.
Getting wholesome once more rapidly grew to become a full-time job for each of us. We threw ourselves into studying every part there was to find out about these ailments, and what evidence-based interventions would carry us essentially the most reduction. As we dove into the analysis, it grew to become abundantly clear how underserved our neighborhood was and the way desperately we would have liked higher help and instruments. So we determined to group up and left our full-time jobs to fill the main systemic gaps that exist in immediately’s customary of care.
Final 12 months, we launched a digital care platform known as WellTheory to assist ladies shortcut, and finally enhance, the present path to an autoimmune prognosis and receiving care. Our purpose 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 ladies with the sources 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.