Patients For A Moment Blog Carnival: You Know You Have ... When ...

I had the wonderful experience of hosting Patients for a Moment Blog Carnival this month. It's the first time I've done it, and was delighted to hear from other patient bloggers, and read their work.

The topic I set was "You know you have ... when ...", based on one of my posts, complaining about life with lupus.

There were four responses from bloggers, and they're all well worth reading! Let's have a brief look at them.

If there's a "best in show", it has to go to RA Guy at Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy. He started a bit before the rest of us, and had some help. His post You Know You Have RA When... has more than 500 responses from readers, some funny, some sad, all out of their experience of rheumatoid arthritis.  You know you have RA when you need scissors to open a packet of Doritos; you have to place the shampoo bottle against the shower wall and lean on it to get shampoo out of the bottle, etc, etc.

Next we take a look at what it's like to live with migraine, with Diana Lee at Somebody Heal Me.  Did you think a migraine was just a bad headache? Think again. Diana's post You Know You Have Migraine When... explains just how bad it can be to experience migraine.  You know you have migraine disease when people tell you how good you look despite the fact that your pain is 8/10, you're dizzy, hot, slow witted, and just about to puke on their shoes.

The lovely Leslie Rott, from Getting Closer To Myself explains what it's like to have a flare of lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, or both, in her post The True Meaning Of A Flare. For Leslie, a flare means pain and fatigue, times a million.  (Leslie is the founder of Patients for a Moment Blog Carnival.)

Then let's visit Selena at Oh My Aches & Pains! Selena's post You know you have chronic illness when... gives 20 points, that I think just about everyone with a chronic illness will agree with.  I know I nodded and smiled at every one of them. She make great points like: You and your chronically ill pals speak in code, using words like: fibro-friendly, painsomnia, Spoonie, ChronicBabe, CA (chronically awesome) and AWAP (as well as possible.) I have to admit that I sometimes forget that healthy people probably don't understand most of these terms.

Thank you to all the awesome bloggers who took part!


Next Month's PFAM

Patient bloggers beware! Turn on the lights. Lock the doors. Make sure you're not alone.

Selena at Oh My Aches & Pains! has a Halloween topic for you. It will be "The Fright Files: Stories of Medical Mistakes."

Watch Oh My Aches & Pains! or PFAM for the call for submissions in the first week of October.