Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness

How to Stay Sane and Live One Step Ahead of Your Symptoms

By: Ilana Jacqueline

Narrated by: Lori Prince

Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

Popular blogger Ilana Jacqueline offers smart and savvy advice, humor, and practical tips for living with an invisible chronic illness.

Do you live with a chronic, debilitating, yet invisible condition? You may feel isolated, out of step, judged, lonely, or misunderstood - and that's on top of dealing with the symptoms of your actual illness. Take heart. You are not alone, although sometimes it can feel that way.

Written by a blogger who suffers from an invisible chronic illness, Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness offers peer-to-peer support to help you stay sane, be your own advocate, and get back to living your life. This compelling guide is written for anyone suffering with an illness no one can see - such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), Lyme disease, lupus, dysautonomia, or even multiple sclerosis (MS).

This book will tell you everything you need to know about living with a complicated, invisible condition - from how to balance sex, dating, and relationships to handling work and school with unavoidable absences. You'll also learn to navigate judg-y or skeptical relatives and strangers and - most importantly - manage your medical care.

Suffering from a chronic illness doesn't mean you can't live an active, engaged life. This book will show you how.

©2018 Ilana Jacqueline (P)2018 Vibrance Press

Great Reference Guide!

I wish I had this with me when I first became ill, it would have saved me alot of heartache and tears. Ilanas words resonated with me on many levels. I would recommend this book to anyone learning to walk in this life with an invisible illness. Whether you have yet to be diagnosed or a seasoned patient, this is great tool.

LOVED THIS BOOK

Thank you so much for all your tools and encouragement!! I now feel empowered to fight for myself.

A must listen for anyone with chronic illness!!

Loved this book. From the performance to the content. Very informative and motivational to take your life back or keep your life despite chronic illness. Will definitely listen to multiple times through out my chronic illness journey.

My absolute #1 go to.

My absolute #1 go to when I need to decompress, when anxiety is high. Everything she says, I can relate to.

A Vital Book!

This is my most favorite book about chronic illnesses. I found out about it in the Facial Pain Foundation's quarterly magazine. I have Trigeminal Neuralgia and many other debilitating chronic illnesses. I feel so alone. I just started chemotherapy. This book really helped me feel more empowered and it brought me comfort in so much darkness.

Chronic Illness

I have several autoimmune diseases. The biggest problem is Shortens Syndrome. none of the protocol medications have helped. in 4 years I have never had a day of relief. Each day is worse than the one before. I am 74 years old. This book did nothing for me. Been there done that.

Comprehensive and specific

The author covers a wide range of topics related to chronic illness, with practical and specific guidance for everything from optimizing visits with medical professionals, to tracking symptoms with an eye toward identifying and limiting triggers, and integrating the imperatives of chronic illness into a full and satisfying life -- on personal, social and occupational levels.. The tone throughout is realistic and at the same time positive and affirming.

One note: at times the content seemed more focused on issues of patients earlier in life (seeking employment, moving from parental home, etc.), to the exclusion of impact of chronic illness met later in life, or having progressed so as to require significant readjustment of long-established identity, e.g, This book overall is comprehensive and clearly valuable, but readers looking for address of these other significant challenges will find it missing here.

A MUST have for chronic illness!

The entire book was so helpful...I only wish I could have been able to read it 25-30 years ago. Would have saved me a ton of agony when I was first learning to navigate the wonderful world of invisible chronic pain and illness that noone will ever believe you have if they can't see it and feel it for themselves!

such a practical and honest presentation

As hard as it is to write a book about a topic that is different for every single person, the author does a great job of sharing her experiences, how she's come to find acceptance, and shares practical tips on how you can do the same, regardless of your symptoms.

Must read for anyone with chronic pain

Handbook to prepare you for how to live a successful life when given a diagnosis -with no cure
Chiari malformation/ syringomyelia
Chronic pain- fibromyalgia
Neuropathy - syrinx
Nerve damage

Well Organised and Helpful

I found Ilana Jaqueline's book helpful and entertaining. While it isn't specific to any particular condition (most books won't be unless you have a fairly common condition I would suspect) I did find her advice helpful. Sometimes we need reminding of things like self-care or how to look at unhelpful family and loved ones. I appreciated the structure of the material, the relatable content, and the overall positive message. I have listened to the book several times and plan to keep it to hand for the reminders I sometimes need coping with my rare syndrome and associated conditions.

I have already recommended this book to several friends and in support forums. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a bit of help managing chronic, rare, or invisible illness.

Small snippets only were useful

Whilst some helpful guidance is given, I was mostly disappointed. There was a continual reference to 'your disease'...when referring to our chronic conditions. But not all such conditions are diseases., this was a hindrance as far as identification with the book is concerned. The author also targeted a younger age profile than was of interest to me personally, that said, I would have overlooked that if it wasnt also produced mainly for the USA market. Those of us not in the US will find vast amounts of information of no use, and unfortunately, also of no relevance.

Vague and patronising.

None of the information was particularly helpful for my condition. Frustrating and patronising as I felt I was being talked down to. Hopelessly vague.

chronically fabulous!

fantastic book. took longer to finish than I could have because I was finding it so relatable and informative I didn't want it to end.

just the right mix of informative and humorous and definitely a wonderful tool for anyone on a chronic illness journey