Talking the talk if you haven't walked the walk

This eternally irks me - people who try to talk the talk and they haven't walked the walk. It is when anyone - your doctor, family member, friend, neighbor, cousin's hair dresser's dog walker's uncle - tries to tell you how you feel or should feel or be treated.

And just how did you get this knowledge if you haven't been in my shoes? This is when my friends try to tell me that I will feel better if I take a nap. Or someone else who thinks that I can be cured by something - a doctor appointment, procedure, nap, or something else. Or my former acupuncturist who thought my lymphedema would resolve itself.

I can't forget about the people who tell me about their family member's previous treatment for a similar ailment years ago and how its probably the best thing for me so I should change to another doctor who will give me that same dated protocol.

Let me just say to all of you: you have no idea of what I am going through. I know people who have one or two of my ailments and realize that they only deal with a portion of my life. I think they wonder how I cope.

Then I meet people with one or two of my ailments and/or a whole bunch of other ones and wonder how they cope. I would not attempt to give them any medical advice. Actually those people and I usually get to share tips such as - going to a specific support group, or compare diet modifications for symptom relief, or thoughts on disability insurance. Or we compare doctors and hospitals. But our treatment protocols can be compared but never recommended.

We all realize that we are very different people and our ailments require differing treatments. We are walking the walk so we can talk the talk. We know how to juggle our medications and side effects. We know how to manage fatigue and stress and temperature changes. We understand the significance of ailment progression. We know about long term relationships with doctors. We know what chronic means and how our ailments won't go away and we will continually face health challenges.

If you are not one of these people, please don't give me health advice.