Not everyone can exercise

Sarah Reilley for The Mighty:

“Nobody chooses chronic illness… So, before judging, remember that they may have done everything right, but illness is unpredictable, unfair and unforgiving. The fact you see [them] out at all is a testament to their efforts to live, despite the pain.”

Sarah couldn’t exercise without feeling awful, due to an invisible pathology that evaded diagnosis for a while: adrenal insufficiency and growth hormone deficiency, caused by [empty sella syndrome](empty sella syndrome)).

“It sounded bizarre to me when my doctor at Mayo Clinic told me that exercise intolerance was a real thing, but it also made me feel better to know that there was a legitimate reason I felt so bad after walking only half a block.”

Not everyone can exercise, because pathology! If you have cancer, no one hassles you for taking it easy. It’s hard to exercise when you’re sick. Duh.

But when the sickness itself is contested? The inability to exercise is contested too! If you have ME/CFS or fibromyalgia, or something else that just hasn’t been diagnosed yet, you will be accused — or insidiously suspected — of being lazy, of being the author of your own malaise.

We use the weird term “exercise intolerance” to describe people who can’t exercise because they’re sick … which should be obvious, but it isn’t, because the illness isn’t obvious. And there is plenty of non-obvious illness out there.

I shared this on Facebook, where it attracted quite a few good comments. (Also a lot of miracle-cure spam! But I delete those fast.)