According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), six in ten Americans live with at least one chronic disease. So, when is a disease considered a chronic condition?

Well, the CDC defines chronic disease as a condition that lasts one year or longer. Thus, causing a need for ongoing medical attention. And also limiting one’s daily activities or both. 

In fact, the main causes of disability and death in America are diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. They are also the leading drivers of the nation’s health care costs which is an estimated 3.3 trillion dollars.  

Healthy choices help in the fight against chronic disease.

Now, the CDC reports that the above-mentioned chronic diseases are caused by poor nutrition, lack of physical activity, tobacco use, exposure to secondhand smoke, excessive use of alcohol and/or all the above.

For some people, changing the preceding behaviors could help ease those chronic diseases. Now, on the other hand, there are chronic conditions that do not yet have a cure. Such as, 

Kidney Disease Alzheimer Disease (AD) and Dementia Epilepsy Asthma HIV/AIDS Arthritis Crohn’s Disease Parkinson Disease Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Mood Disorder (Bipolar, Cyclothymic, and Depression) Muscular Dystrophy (MD) 

Some of the above-mentioned conditions you may very well recognize. Whereas, there are others you may not be as familiar with. Still, there are people who suffer daily with one or more chronic sicknesses. 

How people deal with chronic disease 

This week we have our resident counselor, Ms. Melinda Fields sitting in with us. She has a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Human Services and Counseling. She shares some clinical insights. As well as little bit of her own personal journey of living through a diagnosis. 

Melinda shares how chronic disease can often take its toll on a person’s emotions. Such as when one is first diagnosed with a chronic or terminal disease. She says most people go through some type of grief process.

For one thing, when looking from the traditional science side of chronic diagnoses, both Western and Eastern medicines only manage the disease.

So, when looking at it from a scientific viewpoint, it is in rare cases that an incurable disease is cured. For that reason alone, some people have mixed emotions. 

The five stages of grief 

Since grief is very common, Melinda shares that there are five stages of grief. Therefore, according to the Kübler-Ross Method, when a person experiences a loss of sorts, he/she will experience one or more of the grief stages. Because the impact of chronic illness is very much like a loss depending upon the disease. 

In other words, some people have difficulty with daily activities due to constant pain, severe fatigue and loss of functionality in different areas of their bodies. In the article, Grief in chronic illness: assessment and management, the normal response to losing physical functions is grief.

Naturally, a physical restriction is heart-breaking for someone who is very active. Hence, the start of the grief process.

First is denial, one doesn’t want to admit that there's an issue. Second is anger, the person then gets mad with everybody. For instance, he/she may ponder the following questions, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ ‘Do I need to go to a specialist?’ ‘What specialist do I need to see?’ ‘Do I need to pray?’ ‘Do I need to pray more?