How do you live with chronic disease?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "chronic diseases are long -term diseases and, usually, slow progression," that is, chronic disease is all that ailment that is suffered for a large period of time,So there are countless chronic patients in the world.

Diseases as common as cardiac, different types of cancers, respiratory diseases and diabetes are chronic ailments and, according to WHO, are the main cause of death in the world.They do not see vain, 59% of deaths throughout the planet are relations with the so -called chronic ills.

However, these are not the only chronic diseases.The spectrum is so wide that it is practically impossible to collect them all.There are genetic, autoimmune, neurological, degenerative and caused and environmental factors among other things, and their symptoms and derived problems are very varied.

A person can live with a chronic disease and lead a completely normal life, to a large extent because of the advanced degree of research on it;while others lead a very limited and quite conditioned life.

Given this, we must also bear in mind that there are a multitude of chronic diseases that are not collected by Social Security as limiting when developing a full working life, largely because they are unusual and, therefore, little known.Thus, these people do not receive any kind of help in their daily lives which makes it difficult, even more if possible, carry a completely normal day.

"I haven't felt limited at any time"
Gonzalo, a student of Fine Arts in Seville, 21 years old, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was in 1st Baccalaureate, at the age of 16.

«I had symptoms but I didn't know they were diabetes symptoms.I drank a lot of liquid and I had a long time, after meals, when sugar rises a lot, I got a deadly dream ... but you don't relate it to that, because you don't know it, ”says Gonzalo, who was diagnosed by chance.

«My brother was in a concert and passed out and my mother led him to make a blood test, and he put me in the boat.My brother did not get anything out and the diabetes came out.At first I had a fatal.It was the first day of the fair when they told me, ”he recalls.

«I have not felt limited at any time.The typical.When they take a cake on a birthday, I can say my mother of mine, right?But apart from that already.Eating is one of my big hobbies.It makes me happy.When I was diagnosed with 20 kilos in three months.I was ideal, ”he jokes.

As for how this disease controls, the young man says that it is sometimes difficult.«It is hard to deprive yourself of some things.It is also true that one day you can eat a little more, injecting the insulin that is needed and other days you say good, because today I hit the tribute, but always controlling you ».And, normal diabetes, without deriving in other health problems, such as difficulties in blood coagulation or diverse retinopathies, is easy to carry, Gonzalo tells this newspaper.

"After all, what diabetes is wrong is that it is a disease that then affects your entire body," he says.«It affects you to vision, it affects you to the organs, it affects you everything and never heals.It is a disease that can only go worse.Never better.

As for its treatment, it basically consists of periodic insulin injections, which, like other materials, such as the device to measure blood sugar, have their cost.He even says that sometimes he has to buy special food products that become more expensive than normal.

«In Social Security I have insulin and some things, but there are advancesThat they do now that they are very good, like one that I use, that it is a patch that I carry in my arm and that with the mobile tells me the sugar I have, that they are not covered by social security and I think they will not be.The basics happen to you and that's it ».«With tranquility and wisdom, always having in mind that it is a disease that affects everything and you have to be very careful, although at first a world may seem to you, you can make your normal and current life.There are worse things, even if this is like the evil saying of many comfort of fools. ”He recounts resigned.

"I have immediate memory disorders and exhaustion"

Montse was diagnosed 15 years ago of central sensitivity syndrome.«I was one of the first.Already in 2003 he had the diagnosis ».

Chronic fatigue or central sensitivity syndrome is a little known disease, whose diagnosis is clinical, is based exclusively on patient symptoms.There is no medical test that can diagnose this pathology, which causes strong peaks of exhaustion and sleep disorders and immediate memory, among other things.«I just did an analytics recently and it is completely normal.I have no cholesterol, ”he says.

Due to this lack of evidence that confirms the diagnosis, the first cases were often identified, as was the case of Montse, with psychic disorders."When they tell me that it is a depression, it is very clear," he says, "I had no symptoms of depression."

«I started going to the pain clinic, in the Virgen del Rocío, which helped me.But I remember that there was a doctor who told me that fibromyalgia was a fairy tale.Not even doctors then had knowledge of these diseases.And, when they finally gave him his diagnosis in a clinic in Barcelona, ​​he says he felt released."They told me what I had was to be able to finally understand what was happening to me.""The problem is that there is no treatment."In fact, when he was given the first time, Montse says he tried by homeopathic route, since doctors prescribed antidepressants and analgesics.

In your case, the day to day is not easy.«I wake up more tired than when bedtime, I have immediate memory disorders, which, by one's own age, go unnoticed, but that very difficult for everyday life and the more working life.There is also exhaustion, which is as if you had a poorly cured flu ».The disease does not always manifest itself evident, and it has to take precautions in situations of stress or revelry."The impact of strong emotions, joy and pain, have an impact on my body."

Today Montse takes probiotics, meditation and tries to rest enough."For me it has been very important to make a normal life and accept what I have."

Montse got disability, although it had to fight for it, he says.And, not long after being diagnosed, he was granted the absolute inability.But the following year they changed their degree of disability from absolute to total, which eliminated their economic rights.«I filed a lawsuit.They did not contribute objective criteria with why I had improved.They finally recognized the absolute to this day ».

«A person who has just diagnosed him to go to the right sites.That he does not satisfy the information that comes to him, to contact other people who have lived the same, patients or professionals who are overturned in the subject, who reorganize their life, but try not to keep the limitation ».

"Who will keep me with casualties of months and months?"
Rafael, 48, was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (Les), an autoimmune disease that affects the entire organism, at the age of 27.

THE PATIENTS OF LESThey have an immune system that attacks their own healthy cells, causing many problems to arise throughout the body.In fact, due to the large number of different symptoms that may occur in patients, it is often said that lupus is an imitating disease, since its symptoms are identified with many other diseases.Therefore, its diagnosis is very complex.«It's the worst and that is why a patient is diagnosed is already very deteriorated.The average is between two and five years, ”says Rafael, who was diagnosed with them after two years.«I went into convulsions, I had two consecutive infarctions, I entered the Virgen Macarena Hospital and I was lucky that one of my cousins ​​is one of the best specialists in Lupus in Seville, and just seeing me, knowing that my grandmother had diedFrom Lupus, he started making the test battery for lupus, ”says Rafael after 21 years of those days.

"At first it seemed an arthritis," he recalls, "in fact, several doctors and in several private clinics, but of course, when they did the specific analysis they gave negative."And it is that Lupus, as Rafa says, is "a disease of false diseases."

"I have anemia, leukopenia, lymphopenia, thrombocytopemia, coagulation problems, optical nerve problems, in the heart, globular kidneys but thank God they still work well," he says by listing all the false diseases caused by Lupus.

The base treatment is the hydroxycloroquine, very toxic, which can affect the cornea and the retina, as is the case of Rafael.Then there are the corticosteroids, who create dependence, and then there are immunosses, whose problem is that they repress the patient's immune system and, therefore, this is exposed to many infections.

«Like all chronic or degenerative diseases, leading a normal life depends on the intelligence of each one to adapt to the circumstances.Obviously I have a very physically limited life, because I have left little home, I have had chronic fever for 15 years and I get a lot, ”he says.

In addition, in the workplace he says that he cannot work in a private company, "Who is going to keep me with casualties of months and months?"No, if you are sick or not.And it is that Lupus is not a disease that is recognized by the Social Security Tables, so Rafa does not receive any financial aid.

But, despite everything, Rafa says he leads a happy, "quiet, but very happy life."