How Do You Define Chronic Illness?
Chronic Illness: An illness, the symptoms of which continue for a long period of time without abatement. In fact the word ”Chronic” actually comes from the Greek word ‘Chronos’ which is defined as ‘lasting for a long time’.
A chronic illness is most often a painful and usually debilitating condition that tends to last for over 12 weeks or longer, often for months, which may turn into years depending on how serious the condition is.
There are many different types of illnesses, a cold could last for a very a short time and go away on its own. Sadly, an illness sometimes doesn’t go away and it may cause a lot of stress, upset and anxiety and can even turn the whole family upside down. Because chronic illness goes on for so long it requires some major adjustments to lifestyle and even how a person sees him or herself. It can be really scary to see your life turning out much differently than you expected.
Chronic illnesses are also sometimes passed through a parent’s genes, meaning that the condition or tendency can be passed on to the children before birth. An example of this might be AIDS which might not be immediately visible and gets worse over time.
A few examples of chronic illnesses can include:
-Allergies: A state of physical allergic reaction to certain things such as food, fruits and pollen.
-Asthma:A chronic inflamatory condition of the airways.
-Cancer :A sickness which is essentially caused by abnormal, uncontrolled cell growth.
-Crohn’s disease: A chronic condition which causes damage to the small or large intestine.
-Diabetes:A chronic disease in which the pancreas no longer produces enough insulin or when the cells stop responding to the insulin that is normally produced in the body, so that the sugar in the blood cannot be adequately absorbed into the cells of the body to be converted into energy.
-Arthritis:damage to or inflamation of the joints or body systems :Can be divided into osteoarthritis which mainly affects the joints such as the hips and knees, and rheumatoid arthritis which can spread throughout the body and often shows up in deformities in the hands
-Haemophilia: A bleeding disorder in which one of the essential clotting factors is not functioning as it should.
-Coeliac Disease: A permanent lack of dietary gluten
-Lupus: An immune disease where the body produces the antibodies which damage its own tissues.
-Epilepsy: A disorder in which nerve cells of the brain from time to time release abnormal electrical impulses resulting in uncontrollable fitting.
-Chronic fatigue, otherwise known as M.E which is a condition that is still not fully understood and causes constant fatigue, despite resting.
Each of these different chronic illnesses takes a different path and has different turnouts.
The illness may get more severe over a period of time. It can cause permanent changes to the body. Chronic illnesses in general may make you feel emotionally down and decrease your quality of life.
You are often left not knowing whether it may go or if it will stay. When you are first diagnosed with chronic illness you find yourself worrying about the future and most important of all your health.
If your illness is very serious then you will worry about things that you didn’t even care about before you were diagnosed. You will often find that the smallest of things have become the most important to you now. You will find yourself being frustated, annoyed, angry, depressed, stressed, worried, anxious and most likely of all, lonely and tearful. If you are feeling like this then its always best to talk to a doctor or a counsellor or link up with a group of fellow sufferers or survivors of chronic illness for information and support.
Finding help gives you more hope and helps you to relax and it will ensure you have hope and possibilities of a positive outcome. What gets people down the most is the pain, aches and stiffness and usually a constant lack of sleep that is so persistent with a chronic illness and pain such as chronic muscle pain.
Unlike acute pain which, although can be very severe is over relatively quickly, a chronic condition persists and persists. For example, someone with a toothache might be in agony for a while but it would also be over in a few hours. Whereas, if someone has athritis any movement can bring the experience of pain and stiffness, you cannot walk very far and many have trouble sleeping.
If you find yourself suffering from constant aches and pains over a period of time, even though at first the symptoms aren’t so painful, more of a nuisance, its better to check with a doctor to rule out any potential chronic condition before it takes full hold and when you have a better chance of preventing this life changing illness.
By Joy Idries
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If you or someone in your family is suffering from a chronic condition please feel free to share your experiences by commenting in the box below …
Hi I think this is useful information and thanks for sharing this into your site. It is good to see useful information like this on the web not like all the crap in other websites hehe :p. Once again congratulations and thanks!thanks a lot!. btw how did you manage from spam? your web looks very clean…