Due to the invisible nature of autoimmune diseases, many of its patients look normal and healthy. This presents a challenge for patients’ social sphere, a struggle when seeing doctors for diagnosis, and a lack of general awareness and knowledge of all autoimmune diseases. Despite the many statistics on autoimmune disease, it’s time to put a voice to the numbers.
We present to you, a snippet of our shocking Stanford MedicineX Workshop Survey responses.
Believe it or not, these are the real experiences and words of the lonely voices of autoimmune disease.
It took 7 years and more than 13 doctors to get them to even TEST for my autoimmunity.
It took me 5 years and 12 specialists to be diagnosed with Celiac and Hashimoto’s.
I want the next person to be diagnosed on the first doctor.
I went through several decades of primary doctors dismissing my symptoms because the tests they chose to run came back “normal.”