- I had an autoimmune disease at the age of 21, but I didn’t take it seriously because I denied it.
- Now at the age of 28, I’m engaged to another person with a chronic illness, so I really have to start investing in our health.
- I have a lot of savings for early retirement and emergencies and I am investing in preventive care.
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In early 2015, during the final semester of college, I began to feel strange and consistent pain in my hands. I thought it was strange, but I was so busy that I suffered from physical and mental stress. I dealt with it by popping Aleve every morning.
One day during spring break, I woke up with intolerable pain and my symptoms worsened rapidly until I couldn’t get out of bed. And I finally admitted that something was very wrong. However, I thought it was more important to graduate from school and continue working than to understand it. I crossed the graduation stage.
That summer, I was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis under the umbrella of an autoimmune disease. Before getting effective treatment, I couldn’t even do simple tasks such as dressing up, opening containers, and typing. I couldn’t bend my knees while walking with a cane, so I had to use a shower chair to wash.
It took months to get back on track with a fairly sturdy drug from a very kind doctor. However, as the more serious symptoms subsided, he returned to burning candles at both ends.
In retrospect, I think I was fooled and bitter about the fact that I had serious health restrictions now that most of my peers didn’t have. I pretended I didn’t and did everything myself so that I could live like any other typical and healthy twenties. So I ate, drank, slept, worked, and had a party. I broke my promise with a rheumatologist and tested the limits of the drug. It wasn’t a big deal, I wanted to pretend that my illness was just an inconvenience.
In the end, these choices accumulated and caught up with me, and I’m now more sick than I really had to be 28 years old.
Change my attitude towards my health
Whenever I feel sick, my mother-in-law will soon receive a lot of phone calls and text messages asking very detailed questions that I can’t answer very often.
Chaya is a warm, highly extroverted orthodox Jewish mother of four who dropped out of medical school after studying for three years to care for young children. This is half the reason she knows so much about medicine. The other half is because she has been involved in the treatment of lupus and Crohn’s disease for over 20 years and spends a lot of time talking to doctors.
“Mom doesn’t want you to wear it like you’re in your twenties, so you just harass your health,” my fiancé once told me after I hung up with my mom. .. “Otherwise you will be bedridden with an average life expectancy of 60 by the time you reach her age.”
Like her mother, Samara suffers from an autoimmune disease and is currently being treated for early signs of lupus.
“You don’t have to do that,” Sammy added. “We can live a long and fruitful life together, but you have to take care of yourself seriously.”
When we first started dating, I often blew away her concerns about my lack of health care and joked about it. But when we got more serious and proposed to her, I received a wake-up call that both were ill forever and we needed to prepare our lives with that in mind.
Getting sick in the United States is notoriously expensive, which doubles for people with chronic illnesses. Many people have chronic illnesses, but more and more people seem to have chronic illnesses. In particular, the long-term effects of COVID that some people are currently experiencing are becoming apparent.
So I used to be bad at investing in my health, but now I’m investing to improve my prognosis. Here are six places where I’m investing money to live longer.
1. Keep anxiety low and maintain a stress-free living space
Nothing makes my condition worse than excessive stress. It’s a shame because I tend to be overly anxious. I always feel it during my period, and if I uncheck it, my symptoms get worse.
There are few ways I have invested in stress management. For example, make your apartment as comfortable as possible with dimmers, incense, diffusers, and cozy furniture. These aren’t the purchases I would have made before, but they helped me a lot to help me feel more at home when I was at home.
The bigger thing I’m doing now is looking for a new therapist. It’s been a while since I’ve been a therapist, but for health reasons, I think I need another therapist to keep my anxiety low.
2. Investing in my diet
The saying “You are what you eat” is not just an old saying — it’s very true, especially if your body is already constantly inflamed. When I first got sick, everyone told me how autoimmune diseases “start in the gut” and what you eat can affect your symptoms.
I almost ignored this advice at first, but now I listen more and decide to buy healthier foods that are known to reduce inflammation. A healthy diet costs more than a diet you’re used to, but we hope that changing your diet can reduce your medical costs.
3. Clean up as much as possible for retirement now
This is what I know I really need to do better, especially since I’m pushing 30 now. Even if you’re healthy, the compound interest you get from investing in a 401 (k) or IRA early can prepare you for a much more comfortable retirement than if you started later.
When you get sick like me, it is very important to start early and contribute as much as possible. After all, I’ll probably have to retire earlier than most people.
4. Payment of the best health insurance plan offered by your employer
Whenever you get a new job, you may find that your employer is bothered by looking at all the different plans that your health insurance offers. High monthly premiums can be confusing to many workers. If you are healthy enough, you may be able to escape by planning a high deduction.
I never go to those options. It doesn’t make sense to me because I definitely know to use it. Therefore, even if the premium seems high, I always choose the most comprehensive plan available. I am grateful that the out-of-pocket cost has been reduced.
5. Have a significant emergency savings fund
When I started accumulating disposable income, I first started saving with emergency funds. I know that my future wife and I are both chronically ill, so we need to plan future scenarios in case neither of them can work for a long time.
Normally, emergency funds require 3 to 6 months’ worth of living expenses, but we plan to save over 6 months’ worth of expenses in a high-yielding savings account. Even more after we get married.
6. Investing in over-the-counter supplements and wellness items
I take a lot of very expensive prescription drugs to manage my condition, but I’m also looking for additional over-the-counter supplements that can help as well.
There are many off-the-shelf products that don’t really work very well, and it can be difficult to determine which one works and which one doesn’t. However, experience shows that these combined effects can have real effects over time, so it’s worth repeating trial and error to figure out which ones are useful.
In addition to investing in supplements such as B vitamins, fish oil, strong probiotics, and CBD oil, I also frequently buy compression gloves / sleeves and gel shoe inserts to calm my joints.
