The Lady’s Handbook For Her Mysterious Illness

Sarah Ramey was 21 and a promising student at Harvard University when she came down with a painful but commonplace urinary tract infection. Doctors prescribed antibiotics, promising it would be zapped in days, but six months later Ramey (inset) was still in severe pain. Her parents, both doctors, sent her to an allegedly top-notch urologist who botched a minor procedure on her urethra, leaving her in agony. Within hours, Ramey’s body started to ache and she passed out. Back in hospital, she learned the procedure had given her blood poisoning.

For the next decade Ramey’s health declined; careers, friendships and romances were impossible to pursue. She was constantly e xhausted, her j o i nt s burned and skin itched, her digestion was in disarray, to mention just some of her symptoms.

Doctors, sometimes sympathetic but often hostile, failed to pinpoint her condition. Many pronounced it was all in her head and sent her away with antidepressants or with antibiotics that wreaked havoc on her already weakened gut.

Ramey was what she slightly inelegantly calls ‘a WOMI’: woman with mysterious illnesses, one of an estimated 50 million women in the US alone (the UK has an estimated three million-plus) suffering from a chronic autoimmune condition.

Of these sufferers, about 75 per cent are female, probably because of differences in hormones and brain chemistry. ‘You most likely know one of us already – a co-worker, an aunt, a sister,’ Ramey writes. ‘ She is addled, embarrassed, ashamed and inflamed. She’ll be reluctant to talk about the particulars but noticeably lacking in a solid diagnosis. Most people privately agree she actually suffers from an acute case of hypochondria.’ Ramey is furious that medics repeatedly ignore and belittle these patients. It’s unfortunate that her memoir’s publication coincides with a global pandemic, when many of us feel uneasy criticising doctors. Still, as I learned when my then nine-yearold daughter fell desperately and mysteriously ill, many are at best dismissive when dealing with sickness that’s not instantly identifiable. In Ramey’s case, some were shockingly negligent. Despite her hypersensitivity, one doctor refused to perform a biopsy under general anaesthetic, leaving her unable to walk from pain. Yet he refused her pain relief, implying she was an addict pretending to be ill to score drugs. Another time, wires were drilled unnecessarily into her pelvis, after medics miscommunicated. Today, Ramey is semi-cured, mainly as a result of drastic changes to diet and lifestyle. Her book is a tad too long and its literary style won’t be to everyone’s taste, but to millions suffering, it will be embraced as a long overdue rallying cry.