Rube.

It feels to me as if someone has removed all my skin down to like the muscle and then covered me in a bull blanket, like a mowhare blanket.

The thought of this world not having her in it, that's just unbearable.

There'll be in this kind of cycle of trying to find relief and really suffering and ending up in the emergency room or urgent care.

And you're always looking over your shoulder, when is this going to happen again?

How terrifying would it be to fight an unknown enemy, one you didn't recognize and didn't see coming.

What if that enemy was coming from within a disease that even doctors couldn't identify.

Nearly half of Americans suffer from some chronic and many struggle for an accurate diagnosis.

These are their stories.

I'm Lauren brag Pacheco, and this is symptomatic.

My name is Kristin Willard.

I am the executive director at We See You, which is a US nonprofit, and I also oversee education for an organization called GAP, the Global Allergy and Airways Patient Platform.

An excellent listener, full of curiosity about others.

Kristin is one of those people who immediately feels like an old friend.

She loves dogs, has a thirst for knowledge, and is driven by a desire to help others.

Kristin where are you originally from?

I grew up in northern New Jersey, which I think is one of the most wonderful places on the planet to grow up.

Despite what you might hear from me.

You know, we had the butt of many jokes, but I really think it was an absolutely delightful place to grow up.

Where in Northern New Jersey in Morris County, I grew up in Whippany.

When I was growing up, I had the luxury to move to Europe a few times with my family because of my father's job.

I spent my first and second grade years in England and sixth grade in Paris and in Belgium, and that was I think one of the things that got me interested in working globally and in helping people sort of outside myself, an outside of my backyard.

I hear you're a woman of many hobbies.

I'm a bit of a true crime enthusiast.

I think that my friends would probably say that's the understatement of the year.

To be honest, it is the rabbit hole I go down when I should be sleeping because I have an eight am meeting.

What draws you to true crime?

My formal training is actually in clinical psychology, and I had entered my graduate program wanting to be a forensic psychologist.

But I also think it's because of my interest in other humans and understanding how they tick.

So how did you make the leap from forensic psychology to working in patient advocacy?

In my twenties.

I was working as a research assistant at Georgetown University for three years before I went to graduate school in Florida, and in graduate school, I was actually working in epilepsy research.

So health has always been my interest.

Looking back at your childhood, were there any indications of what kind of health issues you would encounter in your twenties?

No, no precursors.

The first symptoms were in my twenties.

I can say truthfully that I had no inkling of what was to come.

All right, let's dive into that a little bit.

You're at that point living in Arlington.

That's correct.

This is in the early nineties.

I was living just outside of DC and working my first job ever, which was very exciting.

In the city.

I went to a local laundromat, and I was in my twenties, so I was not particular about what kind of products I used, or detergents or anything along all those lines.

In those days, whatever was the least expensive.

I washed my clothes.

At the laundromat, came home, and the next day.

I woke up with a rash, a bright red, itchy rash in the exact shape of my bra and underwear.

I called my mom, can you tell me what this is?

You know?

What she'd said to me was it was easy, was too strong for you?

So I went into urgent care and they quickly gave me steroids and told me to use anahistamines.

You said that it was in the exact location of your undergarments, but was the skin warm to the touch?

It does feel warm to the touch.

I think the most striking characteristic, though, is the itch.

The itch is incessant.

It isn't something like a sunburn where you can feel it and you can see it, but that it is tolerable if you're not moving.

It sort of consumes all of you because the itch is so strong.

So since that was your first outbreak or episode, did they look at it and just to attribute it directly to the detergent.

Yes, I think so, especially because the evidence was so specific, because it was in the shape of my undergarments.

They thought they were on the right track.

Let's make sure the symptoms go away.

And they did, and they go away for quite a long time actually, before they pop up again.

I thought I was home free.

Thinking that this strange rash was just a one time fluke an allergic reaction.

Kristin makes a note to avoid that specific detergent, and she goes on with her life.

Her career blossoms as she finds her purpose working in patient advocacy alongside the person that would quickly become her best friend, Stephanie.

How long have you known Kristin?

Tell me when and where you first met.

We met at our past job.

We both started at this new job about a week apart, and so we've known each other for about ten years.

And you know, I think sometimes your work friends are some of your closest friends, and I think that's maybe true for us.

So what were your first impressions of Kristin?

She is really such a joy to be around.

I mean just as a person.

As a coworker, she's fantastic.

She is dedicated and she is determined.

If you need anything, she there.

I describe her as sunshine.

She really is just one of the most beautiful people I've ever met.

So, outside of your work, what are some things that you too have in common?

We love animals, we love true crime, we're foodies, we're vegetarians.

We joke that we share a brain.

And you found your way to patient advocacy because your background is in healthcare.

Yeah, so I have been in healthcare for around twenty ish years.

I started out as a nursing student, and then I switched over and became a respiratory therapist and I've loved it ever since.

Nearly a decade after the laundry detergent incident, Kristin has hit out of nowhere with another mysterious rash.

When was the next incident?

The next instance was in my thirties, and this rash made itself seen everywhere.

It was known by anybody who would see me, and the rash would migrate all over my body.

So this time the rash hasn't stuck to one location.

That's correct.

So sometimes it was on my face, then in two hours on both of my legs.

The entirety of my legs.

Sometimes it's accompanied by swelling that is so significant that it causes pain.

It almost makes your hands and your feet feel like sausages, like you're shoved so tightly into this casing that you might burst.

So it was very different.

From this point on.

This inexplicable rash comes back regularly, and it lingers for days or even weeks at a time.

It's impact unbearable.

When I have one of these episodes, my skin is covered in inflamed, well just very red.

Your skin looks angry, very red, sometimes almost purple, and much of the time the skin is actually raised up.

It feels to me as if someone has removed all my skin truly, I mean all my skin down to like the muscle, and then covered me in a wool blanket, like a mowhair blanket.

And when you can imagine that, right, it makes more sense as to why you can't cook for yourself, you can't drive yourself, you can't you know, going to a party would be out of the question because I couldn't even get off the couch.

I couldn't even get showered.

Kristin is desperate not to let these debilitating flares derail her entire life, but they continue to pop up unexpectedly in impossible moments.

Stephanie recalls the first time she witnessed to set an outbreak in person.

The first time I saw her with some of the inflammation in place.

We were actually on a work trip in Chicago, and it was bitterly cold, and we had checked into the hotel.

And the next morning she knocked on my door and I opened the door, and there she stood with her eyes almost swollen shut.

It was just the most painful thing that I had ever seen.

Kristen Treizer.

Best to find some sort of pattern that is leading to the outbreaks.

What are you told is triggering it?

I tried to find out, Lauren.

I thought, oh, they must be from food.

There must be something in my environment.

Maybe it's someone's pet with whom I interact.

Who knows.

I saw an allergist and we looked for everything.

I had exhaust of allergy testing, I had blood work.

I would track the things I ate.

I tracked things I was exposed to.

I used detergents that were free and clear.

I stayed away from perfumes, all of these types of things.

There was a time in my thirties where I was convinced that it was old Bay seasoning.

Can you just talk to me about what testing you went through and what the results were.

I had what I consider a very traditional test where they do pinpricks on your skin, so they mapped out my back and did quite an extensive panel I would guess at least thirty, maybe thirty or forty different tests, and it came back absolutely negative for everything, everything.

And I was really shocked.

I still thought it was an allergy, but I just thought we hadn't found out what that allergy was yet.

In a desperate attempt to help her friend Stephanie joins the hunt for clues.

Both of you guys are true crime, Yes, armchair detectives of sorts.

Did you guys apply that skill to try to figure out what was causing these outbreaks?

We absolutely did.

I mean we were trying to apply all of the different learnings through all the years and come up with answers, but none of the things that we would come up with would actually be helpful.

Kristen feels if she can just isolate the trigger, if she can just get to the bottom of what is causing the flare ups, she can defend herself from attack, but try as she might, the rash returns.

I don't know what this is, what's causing it, but I'm sure I was exposing myself to an allergen.

I was sure that was it, and particularly because of what happened in my twenties, that was really obvious as to what had caused it.

And I was furious.

Because I'm so methodical that I was, like, I have eliminated that detergent and I make sure I don't even touch it when I go to friends' houses.

So how what else is there?

Like everything becomes a potential demon right.

When you're desperate for an answer her as to what's bringing something on that it's very difficult to keep your mind from jumping at conclusions as to anything.

And I think you want so badly to figure it out so that you can stop it from happening again in the future.

All you want to do is find the thing, find the magic wand that's going to take all of this away, And we just couldn't find it.

Was it more frustrating for you because of your area of expertise.

Did you blame yourself for not being able to figure it out on your own?

On some levels, It's.

Very interesting because I have some expertise in this area, but I think when I became like every other person or patient, your other hats go out the window.

At least they did for me at the time, and I think I was so incapacitated by the symptoms that it was more just you know, fight or flight.

So itch is a huge deal, right.

That's doctor pil Gupta.

Doctor Gupta is a Triple Board certified allergy and immunology specialist.

She is also the co host of the Itch Podcast.

I actually am the classic allergist.

I suffer from a lot of allergies.

I have asthma, I have allergies of my eyes and nose to pollen, to cats, to other animals, and I also have ezema.

It is a complicated symptom and it's related to nerve fibers in the skin that send a signal to the brain, which can be triggered by many things.

And sometimes it can be a vicious cycle where the more you scratch that itch, the worse those nerve fibers get, and so then you get even more itching.

It's a vicious cycle for the patients.

Years go by, and Kristin is still living with these unexplained flare ups that hit her without warning.

Now, these periods of whole body rashes are lasting months at a time, and Kristen's doctors are still stumped.

Here's Stephanie's recollection of that period.

There was a long period of time where they were prescribing a kind of regiment of proton pump inhibitors, anahistamines, and all sorts of anti inflammatories to see if they could just reduce some of the inflammation.

Was there anything that was giving you relief?

By I would guess my thirties, maybe my forties, I had introduced fomoddine into the equation.

What is that it's.

More commonly known when by brand names like pepsid.

And I had also used soaks that you can use for your skin to calm irritation, that you can use in the bath, things like oatmeal baths, and there are other soaks that you can buy over the counter to use.

And I did find that that would be helpful.

Sometimes I would even just be on the couch with a tupperware of cold water and use a washcloth against my skin, and that felt quite good.

And I'm not sure it did anything, but it did feel good.

In the moment.

What was that time like on a day to day basis, as you're just trying to live your life.

You really do adjust.

You are driving your car, you are walking your dog, you are going to birthday parties, but you still have hives.

Right, So it was almost like if you would get prank calls when you were younger, and you didn't know where they were coming from, and you were always looking over.

Your shoulder, When is this going to happen again?

It was never ending, you know, all day long.

She would be in such misery, all night long, she would be in such misery.

So here she is trying to make it through her day and be a professional, be her normal self to everyone on the outside, you know, and not let them know that there's anything going going on.

That in and of itself is exhausting.

She's trying to meet all the demands of her day, having little to no sleep because she's so miserable all night long.

There's only so much of that that a person can deal with before you get to the breaking point.

It's just more than people are built for.

Honestly, it is torture.

What was the lowest point for you?

I can remember it very vividly.

This was in my forties and I was on the couch, and I was so miserable that I remember thinking to myself, I understand why people kill themselves, and I didn't think I would do it.

I just remember thinking to myself that I understood how they could feel like there was no future if it didn't stop.

We'll be right back with Symptomatic, a medical mystery podcast.

Now back to Some a medical mystery podcast.

Kristin Willard has been living with pain and unpredictable rashes for two decades.

At this point, these flares show up on her doorstep with no warning, staying for months on end.

She's tried everything to figure out what triggers their arrival, allergen panel tests, changes in diets, avoiding fragrance, becoming increasingly selective on what is going in or near her body, but her efforts have no impact, covered in excruciating welts that itch constantly, with no clues or patterns to be found relating to their cause.

Now in her forties, Kristin has lost hope that she will ever find answers and is living in her horrendous discomfort, looking down a tunnel with little light at the end.

I was on the couch and I was so miserable that I remember thinking to myself, I undersunderstand why people kill themselves.

I understood how they could feel like there was no future if it didn't stop.

People will often compare my symptoms to many mosquito bites, and I think to myself, no, no, no, no, I have had many many mosquito bites at one time before.

No one ever describes many mosquito bites as feeling like they've been skinned alive.

I think it is very hard for people to understand.

I think the thought is real.

Take an antihistamine and they will go away, and so I think it's the duration, the severity.

Those things are really hard for anyone who hasn't experienced these to wrap their mind around.

And that's not their fault.

I would go years without flares.

But it is hard to impress upon people just how debilitating it is.

When Kristen opens up about her experience, Stephanie is hit with the wait of her pain.

When she would talk about what she was going through, When she would talk about what she was going through and really letting me know about how uncomfortable she was, not just in the moment within the framework of this is happening and I can't control it, and I can't stop it, and if this is the way this is going to be, I don't know that I can endure this or I want to endure this.

And she would just express this exasperation, you know, just truly exasperated, and I think for most people being able to convey that to your healthcare provider in such a way that they don't see you as being hyperbolic or hysterical or attention seeking.

There's all these things that you're trying to balance when you had these conversations with people to try to get them to take you seriously.

I think those were the moments that maybe translated or were sensed by her healthcare team that this cannot go on.

I cannot continue like this.

I need help.

I need something more than what I'm getting.

This can't be all.

The thought of this world not having her in it because of something like that is that's just unbearable.

Doctor Gupta is all too familiar with the emotional and social impact of unexplained chronic illness.

Oftentimes, I've also heard that relationships are altered by these symptoms.

If you haven't gone through it, you don't really understand hence nature of the symptoms that you're loved on maybe experiencing.

They'll be in this kind of cycle of trying to find relief and really suffering.

At this point, Kristin is living with outbreaks that last as long as six months, her body covered in rashes for longer periods at a time, and the relief between flares is dwindling.

Things are getting worse and worse.

She decides again to seek help from a professional, but this time she finds a specialist who is an expert in the field of allergy immunology, and she is absolutely determined to get an answer.

I had had an episode for it would have been longer than six weeks at this point, and I was having trouble getting relief.

It's hard to say it out loud.

Nothing that we would have done in the past was working.

The worst part for me personally, or the first few weeks, that's where I find it hard to sit, to have a conversation like this, where I don't want to shower because of how bad it feels that my sleep is disturbed.

You are managing it just as best you can.

It will come and go.

And you just are waiting for it to get bad again.

I would never go more than twenty four hours that I can recall during that time without having pithes.

I find it really traumatizing.

So I went to a new allargist immunologist, and I felt this need to prove to her how miserable I was.

Because it waxes in waynes Sometimes you'll show up to the doctor and your hives won't be bad.

So I was prepared with.

Pictures and descriptors.

You know, I was ready to go, and she didn't need any of that.

She believed me.

She knew what it was.

After twenty years of desperately seeking answers, you'd found a doctor who knew what she was looking at.

What did she say?

She said how Chronic spontaneous urticaria.

Also known as CSU.

Doctor Kupta, expert in the field of allergy and immunology, explains.

Chronic spontaneous urticaria is a specific type of condition where you've had hives for at least six weeks or longer and they come and go without any rib or reason.

You can get them in the morning when you wake up, in the middle of the night, during the day, anytime of the day.

Hives can also be called urticaria, and hives are caused by a chemical called histamine that's released in our body.

And when histamine is released, it can cause hives.

And histamine can be released because of an allergic reaction, but it can also be released outside of an allergic reaction.

That's where it gets really confusing for people with chronic spontaneous urticaria, because those aren't hives related to an allergy.

Do we know the root cause why some individuals have CSU and others don't.

We're starting to see that it may be something called an autoimmune or an autoallergic condition within their body.

And so what that means is that your body may be reacting to chemicals that are in your body normally and that may be causing mass cells to secrete the histamines with CSU.

Are there triggers in terms of the flare up.

Trigger can sometimes be a confusing word because sometimes when people think of triggers, they think that's the cause.

So it's not the cause of those mass cells being activated.

Your body would release those chemicals with or without that trigger, but that release may be enhanced if you're also exposed to that trigger.

Triggers, maybe things like stress, maybe things like hot or hold weather, maybe things like certain foods.

But even if we put somebody who had chronic spontaneous or to carry out in a bubble, they would still have hives because the body is doing something inside of itself that's causing the mass cells to release those chemicals.

And it was so freeing for me, it really was.

It was something that had nothing to do with any allergy at all.

And I also found out at that time that we would probably never find out what caused it.

And can I tell you what a relief that was to me.

I know that sounds.

Counterintuitive maybe, but I could stop trying to figure out what it was that this was.

It was just something my body was doing, being overactive in its defense of itself.

Finding a diagnosis for patients with this stabilitating condition after years of searching for answers is something doctor Gupta doesn't take for granted.

You know, those are the good days, those are the great visits.

Those are the visits that we wish we could just have on repeat, because those are the moments that every doctor wants with CSU, because the quality of life burden is so high when a patient finally gets relief.

It is very rewarding and everyone feels so good.

Kristen's visit with her own doctor was this way.

I think that doctor really changed the way that I view this condition entirely.

It was probably less than twenty minutes that first conversation I had with her, and she changed my life.

She really did.

When she said this has a name, and this is what we're going to do about it, and we have a plan.

There is so much relief, so much relief and just having the name, because now you know what you're dealing with, and you have a strategy, something that you can do to improve your situation, to improve the symptoms, to improve your.

Day to day.

And I think just the joy, the relief that I think both of us spelt in that moment that was pretty profound.

Were you familiar with CSU.

Most of the patients that I would work with have other inflammatory processes going on, whether it be asthma or COPD or something like that, so they would always be coupled with other sorts of flare ups.

But yeah, I had been familiar with CSU for years.

Wow, So it must have been in that moment.

It must have been as if you were standing so close to the puzzle, yes, that you couldn't see it.

That is exactly how it was.

It's like sometimes you feel like you're working the puzzle, but you don't have the picture for the box.

You're just trying to frantically put pieces together.

And that's a lot of what this felt like.

After years on her diagnostic, Goddessy not only had found a name for her condition, but there was also a clear path forward.

What did your doctor tell you about possible treatments?

She said, The logical next step is to try a biologic if you're willing, And she told me all about it, and I would have done it in that very moment if I could have.

For those who are not familiar, what is a biologic.

Most medications are made from chemicals.

Biologic medications are made from living organisms.

It is a medication that targets a specific part of the body internally, and it helps shut things off or turn things on.

So it almost seems like it is as close to a personalized, almost designer approach to a particular condition.

I think it's one hundred percent as close as it can get in the situation to personalized medicine.

I felt that my hives were getting the attention so did they deserve.

When we first started seeing patients with CSU, we really only had antihistamines, and it was really frustrating for us as doctors and for patients because we weren't getting to that point where people were getting relief.

Now we actually have three other medications that are approved for chronic spontaneous urticaria, and if one doesn't work, then we can reach for another.

It was a game changer.

Did you have any reservations at all about trying the biologic.

I definitely was nervous because this was so new.

I think anytime that they say, you know, we'll keep you in the office for a said amount of time after a monitor for anaphylaxis, that's nerve wrecking, right, even though you know how well this works in the safety profiles of certain drugs, you know, I think that would be nerve wrecking for anyone.

But I was just filled with such hope.

I think that something might change for me.

I remember that she was getting ready to go for her first appointment for her biologic treatment, and she was pretty nervous about it.

For many years, I had asthmatic patients who would come into the hospital and we would administer the biologic in the emergency room and have them sit and wait with us for forty five minutes or an hour.

You just make sure they didn't have any adverse reactions.

And so I was very familiar with these biologics, and I said, let me tell you what it's going to be like.

And so I was able to share with her, you know, this is what they'll do, this is how the treatment will be.

And I think we talked maybe that whole forty five minutes that she was in the waiting room.

Finally the time was up and they let her go, and she said, oh, that wasn't bad at all.

I had really hoped that the results would be, you know, within the first month they would be much better, and then I would expect not to see them again after that.

But the results were not immediate.

In fact, when months had passed and Kristen was still experiencing symptoms, she started to believe that maybe this treatment was not going to work.

She was a little disappointed because it didn't seem to be working, and really questioning whether or not it was something that she should even continue because she wasn't getting any benefit from it.

And I remember having the conversations with her of just stick it out.

These things are not immediate.

It took you a long time to get to this point.

We need to give this biologic chance.

We need to give this medication a chance to get in there and undo all of the things that have been done.

I was losing hope, and I talked to a colleague who was a pharmacist and just said, can you help me to understand, you know, is it going to be this way forever?

And he was talking with colleagues who said to him, you know, make sure she waits to six months.

Let's just see what happens when she gets to six months.

And I thought, okay, I can do that.

Let's see what happens when we get to six months.

And then early in twenty nineteen, twenty years after the first rash and six months after the biologic was administered, what happens.

In my mind, it is almost as if a switch flipped at six months, almost exactly as they had said to me, and my hives were gone, absolutely gone.

Even now looking back on this, I can I can feel your joy.

I'm grinning like a goofball.

How many years has it been?

I think it has been I think it has been seven years.

Wow, can you believe that I actually didn't start to say that I was in remission until this year, Believe it or not.

I still keep a drawer full of Anahis tom Is just in case, and every once in a while I will have a hive and I do not panic.

How have you seen life change for Kristen?

Since she has gotten relief through effective treatment, she.

Is finally comfortable in her own skin.

She's not constantly thinking about, oh what if I had this flare up?

Or I'm in the middle of this flare up?

How can I possibly do all the things that I need to do?

She can really just have a normal existence now, a normal life without the worry of always having that hanging over her head.

One of the best things in life is being in a hot shower or being in a hot tub, a warm pool, or the warm ocean.

And that was absolutely intolerable.

And what a gift it is that I can have water touch my skin without misery.

Wow, that just made me emotional.

You know.

It's if you a door opened and you were allowed to step back into living life fully.

Yes, that's exactly right.

That's exactly what it feels like.

This is the perfect place to pivot into your advocacy work.

Why is advocacy such a big part of your life today?

I started an advocacy work because my father died of COPD.

COPD stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

It refers to a group of lung diseases that caused damage to the lungs over time.

He was sixty five years old, he had only been retired two years, and his mother died at fifty seven of COPD as well.

And I didn't even know that patient advocacy organizations existed until I found the COPD Foundation, And once there, I realized that there were all of these caring, bright motivated, passionate individuals working to improve the lives of people impacted by chronic disease every day.

Kristin left the COPD Foundation in twenty twenty three to take a job as the vice president of Education for the Global Allergy and Airways Patient Platform.

She is also the executive director of We See You, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering and improving the lives of those affected by chronic urticaria.

It's amazing the world that opens up to you when you start listening to patients and their families, whether they live next door to you or whether they live on the other side of the globe.

It is amazing what we can do for each other, how we can empower each other, educate each other.

It's amazing how we can help to push others to better advocate for better care for themselves, or for physicians and other healthcare professionals to listen to them in a way they haven't before, to work with them in a way that they haven't before, or to even speak to lawmakers that they thought they would never meet in their lives.

The power of patient advocacy is I feel limitless, and so I consider it an honor for us to be able to do this every day.

I'm very lucky that this is what my journey has been.

We work so closely with patients who are living with chronic illnesses.

It changed our perspectives, hers in particular, because she can say, I understand exactly what you're talking about.

I know what it's like to live with a chronic illness.

But you don't have to be a victim of it.

You can find your power and you can change this outcome, and I think that is really powerful for her.

I think the most important thing that a provider needs to do is acknowledge those feelings, right, and acknowledge that the condition that they have, that they are dealing with a condition that's difficult, right.

And so again, sometimes even patients, because it's not a life threatening condition, they get kind of confused and they feel like, am I overreacting?

No, You're not overreacting.

This is a big deal.

You're not able to sleep, you're not able to function, you are feeling uncomfortable in your body, and you're also feeling self conscious.

We are here in partnership and we're going to figure out which medication is going to work.

And is there a new type of medication on the block when it comes to treating CSU.

Just recently, we have another new option which is called a BTK inhibitor, and this is what we call a small molecule medication.

And one of the things that we have seen with the BTK inhibitor is that it may work more quickly than biologics.

All of these medications target different parts of the immune system and block that histamine ultimately from getting released.

For me, more is better, I can't wait for more research to be done in this condition, in all conditions, so that we can really have options when one medication may not work for a patient, because at the end of the day, every human body is different and some people may respond to one medication and some people may respond to another medication.

That we are in this field to help people feel better, and that's our ultimate goal at all times.

Kristen, what do you hope that people take away from your story?

You didn't even know you said it, but hope is what I hope they take away.

I think that when we are in our darkest moments with a chronic condition, we often don't think that there's anyone out there working for us.

We don't think that there are people who understand us, or other people who are going through what we've gone through, or healthcare professionals who can help us.

Even if it feels like the condition is unbeatable, even if you feel like in the moment, oh, this is not getting any better, I'm tired.

Even when it feels insurmountable, know that it isn't know that there are people out there all day, every day who have dedicated their lives to finding answers for you and people like you.

They're doing the research, they're doing the clinical trials, They're out there trying to find answers to support you.

So keep looking, keep searching.

Find the right healthcare team that will not take no for an answer and will keep looking to find the right answers for you.

No one knows you better than you know yourself, but a close second is somebody who experiences what you experience when it comes to a chronic disease.

I think that communication, that community, that support, that peer to peer advocacy is irreplaceable.

You do not have to suffer in silence alone or think this is something that you just have to adapt to for the rest of your life, because your life does not have to be like this.

There is hope.

There is hope.

I'm Kristin Willard and it took me until my forties to figure out that I had chronic spontaneous urticaria and I am now a patient intermission and could not be happier to say that.

You can learn more about we see you at Chronicdherdicaria dot org and you can find the Global Allergy and Airways Patient Platform at gaapp dot org.

Coming up on next week's episode of Symptomatic, Michelle Shapiro had built a career helping others get healthy when she was hit with a debilitating health crisis.

If I had to go to the bathroom, I had to literally lift myself up on my arms onto my computer chair, put myself on the floor crawl because if I put my feet on the ground, my heart rate fluctuations were so severe that I would then be an episode for days.

Doctors were unable to identify the cause of her symptoms, no matter how hard Michelle pushed for answers.

So unwell that she could barely function, Michelle made it her mission to get to the bottom of what was going on, only to find that the condition she was experiencing is still being understood by the medical community.

As always, we would love to hear from you.

Send us your thoughts on this episode, or share a medical mystery of your own at Symptomatic at iHeartMedia dot com, and please rate and review Symptomatic wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next time then till then be well.

Symptomatic a medical mystery podcast, is a production of iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio.

Our show is hosted by me Lauren bry Pacheco.

Our executive producers are James Foster, Matt Ramano, and myself.

Our supervising producers are Ryan Ovadia, Haley Aliah Erickson, and Daniel Ainsworth.

This episode was written by Haley Aliah Erickson and edited by Samuel Richardson.