Welcome to my blog

My name is Emily and I’m a pharmacist in the UK. I blog about health, taking medication, research, and pharmacy services for people with M.E. I also write about the projects I work on and my voluntary work as Pharmacist & Research Officer for Action for M.E. Read on to find out more about my M.E. story.

I’ve had M.E. and fibromyalgia since my teens. My M.E. was undiagnosed until 5 years ago, when I had a severe relapse. All the symptoms I’d struggled with which had wrecked my life again and again were linked up at last by a specialist.

I really want to combine my 30 years of living with illness, 11 years of healthcare education, and 10 years of pharmacy work, to train health professionals, improve our experience of health services, and help address the inequalities faced by people with M.E.

My M.E. story

I’ve blogged about my experiences and observations in the hope that we can learn from them and provide better support for people with M.E. My M.E. story’s very long and difficult for me to tell but the articles below include parts of it:

Studying with M.E. – The proudest day of my life and my struggle to get there  gives an idea of what my teens and twenties were like, having M.E. but without the diagnosis, having been told each symptom I presented with was nothing, and the depression that developed about 3 years after the onset of the first symptoms. It talks about how my health affected my education and how I eventually managed to finish my undergraduate education, with the right support, and became qualified as a pharmacist 3 years ago.

World Pharmacists Day 2015  talks about the support my pharmacists have given me throughout my health problems, which inspired me to return to studying to do my pharmacy degree. Why I chose Pharmacy talks about this in more detail, and why I think pharmacists could be helpful for people affected by M.E.

Out of sight, out of mind is a blog post I wrote for Action for M.E.’s Hidden Faces of M.E. social media campaign. This post talks about what happened at the start of this big M.E. relapse to severe M.E. 3 years ago, what it felt like to be ill and not getting better, as well as being hidden from view and losing touch with everyone apart from my family and a couple of old friends. Although I have improved, I’m still at the moderate level described towards the end of this blog post and struggle to get my symptoms stable instead of fluctuating all time.

Wow! I haven’t seen you for, like, ages!  talks about venturing back into the world and starting to socialise again after an improvement to my symptoms to mild-moderate. Unfortunately, my symptoms have deteriorated back to moderate and I’m unable to socialise much again.

About my work as Volunteer Pharmacist & Research Officer with Action for M.E.  is about what I’m up to now with my voluntary work, which I mostly do from home via the internet, social media and emails. I can’t manage to do set hours as my symptoms still fluctuate from day to day and throughout the day, within the moderate category. Fortunately, this work allows me to be very flexible and I am really enjoying what I’m doing again.

More patient experiences from other people with M.E. can be found in the Our Stories section of my blog.

Please consider donating to Action for M.E., the charity I work with as Volunteer Pharmacist & Research Officer. Text EBME99 £3/£5/£10 to 70070 or visit my JustGiving page .