Ours is an invisible illness

I'd never thought about it this way before, but Migraines are invisible. What got me thinking about this was the About.com newsletter I received in my email this morning. There was a link in it to an article about National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week, which is this week. I'm going to put a snippet of it here and hope you'll follow the link to read the rest. It's really interesting. Actually part of it is pretty startling!

"Our Illnesses May Be Invisible, but They're Very Real"
by Teri Robert at About.com Headaches / Migraine

Living with chronic headaches and Migraine disease, we have something in common with 96% of people who live with a chronic illness -- our illness is invisible. That doesn't make it any less real, painful, or debilitating.

• Nearly 1 in 2 Americans (133 million) has a chronic condition.
• 96% of them live with an illness that is invisible.
• The divorce rate among the chronically ill is over 75%.
• Studies have reported that physical illness or uncontrollable physical pain are major factors in up to 70% of suicides.

Please go to About.com to read the rest of this article.

By the way, the About.com newsletter is fantastic, and it's free!

Shalom!