Stop Offering Me Your Unsolicited Medical Advice

“Have you tried…?” and other things people with chronic conditions are tired of hearing.

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I have chronic conditions and comorbidities. It’s a hard thing for me to talk about. It has a name, but I struggle to say it. And to be honest, to further prove the point of this article and avoid the very thing I’m denouncing in the comments, I won’t be specifying what my condition is.

Here are the things worth knowing:

1. I’ve been dealing with it since I was about 9-years-old.
2. It comes and goes intermittently.
3. When it flares up it’s painful. Sometimes I have trouble walking and doing daily activities because of it.
4. There’s no cure for it.

In light of these factors, there have been many times when, dealing with the symptoms and side effects, I’ve had to explain to people that I have a condition. Whether that’s because I can’t go somewhere or do something I usually do, or because I’m just in a particular amount of pain on any given day and opt to share that when someone asks, “How are you doing?”

Inevitably, within a matter of minutes, they will come forward with: “Have you tried…?”