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What Are You Doing Right Now? I’m In Chronic Pain.


My chronic pain never stops being interesting to me. If someone were to ask about my health, I could provide them hundreds of updates about today alone. The way my brain felt like it was bouncing in my skull when I walked down the hall to put my dishes away. The way looking down at this computer pulls painfully on my middle back. The way I felt the shower walls sway this morning and crouched on the floor so that I was even lower to the ground than my shower stool, in case I fainted. The way my toddler Khalil, sitting next to me in bed, my left arm wrapped around him, caused shooting electric nerve jolts to run down my body. The way that, while attempting to make it to the car for a 9:30 am appointment, I experienced wave after wave of consuming clamminess, vertigo, and nausea that eventually drove me back inside.

I can’t remember a time without daily pain but my health worsened dramatically when I was 28. My migraines and back pain, which had been manageable, exploded into volatile neurological symptoms. One day I was a runner and business owner and the next, August 23, 2011, I couldn’t get out of bed.

I stopped working, went from running most mornings and seeing friends most evenings to barely leaving my bed, and spent months shuttling between dozens of appointments with dismissive doctors. I felt as though my body was disappearing, beholden to chronic pain.

After two years, I was finally diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous systems which regulate heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and digestion. I’m chronically dizzy. Regularly nauseous. Unable to tolerate heat.

A year after my POTS diagnosis, one of my sisters suddenly developed the same symptom constellation, so we visited a geneticist together. We were both diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a genetic connective tissue disorder that alters the makeup of collagen, an essential component of skin, tissues, blood vessels, and bones. For reasons not fully understood, POTS is a common complication of EDS. The possible symptoms of both are extensive and far-reaching and, almost always, very uncomfortable.

When my husband David asks about my day, I’ll tell him about the books I read, friends I spoke with, and essays I wrote, but really, most of every day is devoted to the management of physical needs, experiences, and discomfort. The careful calibration of salt, water, food, rest, movement, temperature, meditation, purpose, and connection. The endless search for a comfortable position in bed or on the couch. The consideration of necessary routine or treatment changes.

Sometimes I don’t tell him the whole truth because I’ve lived it all day and don’t want to relive it with him. Sometimes I stay quiet because I don’t want to make him sad. He loves me—he hurts when I hurt.

When asked about my pain, I could describe the way I have worried about the future today: If I’ll be able to leave the house soon, if my symptoms are indicative of a spinal problem that will need to be solved surgically, if the disability payment renewal forms are being processed or if I’ll lose my benefits.

I wish I could tell people in the moment how I’m feeling. I don’t exactly understand what compulsion prevents that. I have a few friends with whom I can be honest; while in conversation I stop and shut my eyes and say hold on a second, I’m dizzy and need to rest. With most people I just keep smiling and listening, fighting against an overwhelming urge to cry or panic or sleep.

Sometimes it’s simpler to talk about the activities that illness prevents than the actual experience of illness—maybe because it’s easier for a healthy person to imagine losing something they have than feeling something they have not experienced and would prefer not to imagine. Trying to relate a corporeal experience that someone has not had is difficult. Alphonse Daudet, a French novelist who spent his final years suffering from syphilis, described talking about illness perfectly: “Pain is always new to the sufferer, but loses its originality for those around him. Everyone will get used to it except me.”



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Zoey Deutch on the One Product That Truly Helps Her Chronic Hormonal Acne


If you’ve had even one angry, uncover-up-able pimple, you might know what it’s like to be a slave to a “bad” skin day: For me, it looks something like hiding under the covers and avoiding all contact with humans (or mirrors) for 48 hours, minimum.

On the first episode of Glamour’s What I Wore When podcast, Zoey Deutch talked about her almost-decade-long battle with acne, and how she eventually decided to stop hiding. The Politician actor isn’t just struggling with an occasional, pre-period zit; she has chronic hormonal acne that she’s been trying to tackle for eight years.

“There’s not one thing that fixes it all,” she said. “You have to come at it from every angle. And I’ve seen every fancy dermatologist and every person that claims to know, and I’ve tried every product and tried every antibiotic and done everything, and I can’t fix it.”

She’s currently taking a “less is more” approach to skin-care, but there’s one thing she swears by: “The one product that I cannot travel without it because I do think my skin goes completely bonkers without is, iS Clinical Active Serum,” she says. “It’s very drying and it’s very intense and stingy, but I think it’s the best product.”

All products featured on Glamour are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

iS Clinical Active Serum from Dermstore, $135.

Courtesy of brand

But while she is trying to get rid of her pimples, she also said she’s no longer letting acne dictate when she leaves the house. In fact, she’s come to a place in her life where she’s grateful for it. “I have a thyroid problem,” she said. “I keep trying to fix [my acne] from the outside in, but it’s inside out, which is mostly what it is with hormonal acne. And I have had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment with it, which is actually have gratitude for it because if that’s like, I don’t know. It’s not that bad. And also who cares? I’ve made it such a big thing. You hear about it but it’s like I won’t go out or I won’t do certain things [but now I just need to be, like], who cares?”

For more from Zoey, listen to the first episode of What I Wore When.



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I Didn't Have My First Orgasm Until I Was 28, Thanks to Chronic Pelvic Pain


Finally, I thought, things were going to change. For once, I wasn’t anxious. I was relaxed. Ready. But as soon as he inserted his penis, I screamed so loud, I’m pretty sure I woke up all of the neighbors. I started crying uncontrollably, pushed him away, and ran to my bedroom, ashamed to admit that it hurt so much.

Addressing Pelvic Pain

One year, no sex, and lots of shame later, I started to see a talk therapist after experiencing severe anxiety and panic attacks that interfered with my daily life. I was always an anxious person, but until now I’d always been able to cope with my symptoms. Maybe anxiety really was behind my pelvic pain, and it was all in my head.

About six sessions in, I decided I trusted my therapist enough to open up about my chronic pelvic pain and fear of sex. It was the best decision. She told me this was very common, even though it’s rarely talked about. She asked me if I had ever masturbated, to which I emphatically replied, “Never.” I didn’t connect with that part of my body, except when I had to put on a pad during my period. I basically pretended I didn’t have a vagina; no way was I going to try and pleasure myself. The thought alone made me tremble with fear.

Talking about the pain and shame I felt surrounding sex helped. It wasn’t all in my head. I wasn’t the only one. But after months of talking, I was talked out. While I wasn’t as fearful, I still had immense pain. I had hit a wall. So my therapist suggested I make an appointment with a pelvic floor physical therapist. I didn’t even know these types of PTs existed. Why had no one ever mentioned this before? I immediately called and scheduled an appointment.

During our second session, the physical therapist did a pelvic exam—she didn’t use any scary speculums and went really slowly, talking me through each step. My pelvic floor muscles were shockingly tight, she explained, which was why I was likely having so much pain whenever I tried to insert anything, by myself or with a partner. Anxiety did contribute to that chronic state of tension but the solution wasn’t as simple as “learning to relax.” I needed to retrain the muscles.

We made a plan for 12 sessions of physical therapy and she sent me home with a set of dilators—smooth plastic, cylinder-shaped objects that come in a variety of graduated sizes—which are used to gently stretch the vagina. She suggested I start with the smallest dilator, about 3.5 inches long and a half-inch circumference, and use it for 15 minutes each day.

Suddenly paying so much attention to my vagina felt like a chore. Pleasure had felt like such an unreachable goal for years and when I started physical therapy, it finally felt possible. But this wasn’t fun, it was clinical. I was starting to experience less pain but pleasure was still totally foreign to me.

After a year of treatment, I could successfully insert a tampon. Yay me. But after all this work, I felt no closer to sex. No closer to the toe curling sexual pleasure I’d been hearing my friends talk about for years. Just to maintain the small but significant progress I’d made, I’d have to keep using the dilators.

Owning My Pleasure

After I’d finished physical therapy, I was having a conversation with a friend from college and mentioned my experience with dilators and how I didn’t even know what sexual pleasure was. She explained that she doesn’t typically have an orgasm when she’s with a partner—only when she is masturbating. I’d realized in talk therapy that I didn’t have a clue how to masturbate—thanks to the pain, my entire pelvic region felt off limits even to me. But for the first time I realized I didn’t necessarily need to insert anything into my vagina to get off.



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A Chronic Illness Is a Full-Time Job—And It's Messing With My Mental Health


With a chronic illness, even something as simple as going on a date has an added layer of complexity. I could usually make it through a couple of dinners without anyone noticing that I was checking my blood sugar (not just my phone) under the table, but if things got hot and heavy, there inevitably came the moment when I’d have to fess up and explain that I may have to stop mid-romp to check my blood sugar.

Bionic woman: My insulin infusion port, left, and continuous glucose monitor sensor and transmitter, right. In my pocket is my insulin pump.

Ashley Batz

When I was in my teens and 20s, I tried to pretend my diabetes was a peripheral part of my life—I wasn’t ready to own the fact that I had a permanent, chronic illness that could result in very real complications like kidney failure, eye disease, neuropathy, or heart disease if I didn’t maintain well-controlled blood sugars. Unless I was with close friends or family, I often hid my blood glucose testing and insulin delivery.

But downplaying it, of course, didn’t change the fact that I do have diabetes. What I couldn’t quite bring myself to admit until recently was that I felt an intense loneliness attached to my disease. I hated the idea that my condition could slow me down or spoil the fun. While other people my age were eating whatever they wanted and partying their faces off, I knew that for every drink I had or handful of fries I ate, it could mean I’d be on a blood sugar roller coaster for hours afterward.

Now that I’m in my 30s and actively planning for a future with my partner, I’ve been forced to look at the emotional toll my diabetes has taken on me—and I’ve realized I’m just beginning to understand another layer of my already complex disease.

The daily stress of maintaining healthy blood sugar levels might seem like a small thing to people who don’t experience it—even I tried to write it off as general “life” stuff for a long time, piling it alongside things all young adults deal with, like building a career, paying bills, and navigating relationships. But all the blood sugar math, and finger pricks, and stress over what’s on my plate, really add up. Going for a run, eating at restaurants, getting dressed, traveling, driving—heck, even having my period—all involve additional checklists to ensure my glucose is in control and I can be comfortable. Plus, managing diabetes is expensive. It’s a lot to keep track of.

Hands drawing insulin with a syringe.

Insulin injections or infusions will be a part of my daily life—forever.

Ashley Batz

I’ve been lucky so far to have not developed any serious physical complications, but it’s become clear in the past few years that a large part of my emotional turmoil—acute anxiety, worry about money and safety, fear of making mistakes—is, and always has been, directly related to my diabetes.

The research backs this up: having diabetes may add to your risk of depression, and can actually lead to a condition called diabetes distress, which is similar to depression in that it involves feeling out-of-control or powerless, but specifically related to diabetes. The irony is, it’s not always clear whether the diabetes fuels the depression or if it’s the other way around; high stress levels can elevate blood sugars, which can contribute to even more stress around keeping blood sugars in check. “When you’re asked to take on this extra work of managing your disease, burnout and having an emotional response is common,” says Dr. Polonsky. “It can be like a ball and chain, making it even harder to manage this disease successfully.”

That’s the thing about living with diabetes: No matter how “good” you are about checking your blood sugars and eating what you should to keep them in check, there are just some days—and sometimes long stretches—when you feel completely out of control. It’s easy to feel like a failure when you’re trying your best and it doesn’t pay off.

I recently realized that I can’t simultaneously improve my health and let fear run the show. Instead of downplaying the demands of my disease as I did in my teens and 20s, I’m now trying to examine and embrace them. That means asking questions and getting curious about the many ways in which my disease impacts my life and the lives of others. It means going back to therapy to specifically address the fear and anxiety I feel about my diabetes. And I’m trying to forgive myself for judging my worth based on the numbers I see on my glucose monitor.



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Confessions of a Chronic Wellness Voyeur


Last night my dinner was a single strip of leftover chicken katsu, consumed cold, while I stood in the glow of the open fridge. And for dessert: a bowl of fuchsia fruit-flavored cereal called Cheetah Chomps, which I ate in bed. I have the health habits of a can’t-be-bothered college kid, but my Instagram feed tells a different story.

I follow Jessamyn Stanley for all the body-positive yoga my heart can handle. I watch Kayla Itsines foam-roll her thighs on a loop. I’m rapt whenever I see tarot cards and crystals in my feed (what does the new moon mean for my emotional state and menstrual cycle?). But I almost never put any of it into practice. As a health editor and writer, I should believe “wellness is life,” as they say. Instead I lurk around the periphery, watching, following, rarely participating.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Wellness is a $3.7 trillion industry and growing, according to Global Wellness Institute data from 2015 (the most recent available). Clearly, plenty of people are buying in, and that includes me. This spring, for example, I signed up for ClassPass and gleefully swiped around the app to see innumerable exercise possibilities stretching out before me. Then I never used a single credit. (See also the two bottles of essential oils I purchased for I’m not sure what reason, which hang out in my shower.)

Data suggests many of you are the same: The numbers of people saving “easy” and “low-key” workouts on Pinterest are up 155 and 83 percent, respectively, since last year. And Google searches for Bikram yoga (the hot kind) peaked in January 2012 and have been on the decline ever since, while searches for Yin yoga (which is essentially instructor-­facilitated lying down) hit an all-time high in January 2018 and have kept rising. Meanwhile, Itsines has 9.6 million Instagram followers, more than the populations of Houston, Los Angeles, and Chicago combined. Don’t tell me there isn’t at least a Delaware-sized faction who are there only to check out her cute gym clothes. Plenty of us are here for the inspo but not so much for the work.

Recently my health voyeurism—uh, my job—took me to a breakfast with actress Kate Walsh, where she explained that one in three Americans her age don’t get enough protein. While I related to her saying, “Sometimes dinner is truffle fries and mayo,” I didn’t alter my diet. Still, I’ll happily lose an hour looking at ways to layer flax and chia in Weck jars, even though I can’t say I’ve ever attempted to eat such a thing. (Have you? Be honest.)

It’s like I get a contact high from being wellness adjacent but can’t quite tolerate the real thing. I often say (to no one in particular) that I really have been meaning to work out—I’m just so busy. This week I was invited to try The Class by Taryn Toomey, which I’ve heard is a transcendental cardio experience, with Chanel skin care in the bathrooms. Before committing, I asked Toomey how to get over my block. “You always have a choice,” she told me via email. “If you would like to procrastinate in your own self-­development and self-realization, you have a choice to do that. Sometimes it feels like tough love, but you have to use motivation and just do it…. Just begin.” And she’s right. I guess I could look at a class list to start. But first I think I’ll grab a yoga mat and see how lying down works out.

Laura Norkin is a health editor and journalist in Brooklyn.

This story appeared in the August 2018 issue of Glamour. Illustration by Dennis Eriksson.



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