When managing your health starts taking over your life
Living with ongoing illness, or supporting someone who is, can make life complicated and exhausting.
I help you make sense of what’s going on, find ways to make things more manageable and create a little more room for the people and things that matter to you.
When managing your health starts taking over your life
Living with ongoing illness, or supporting someone who is, can make life complicated and exhausting.
I help you make sense of what’s going on, find ways to make things more manageable and create a little more room for the people and things that matter to you.
It's not just the illness. It's everything that comes with it.
The appointments. The research. The supplements and treatments. The conflicting advice. The constant decisions about what to try, what to carry on with and what deserves your attention next.
And while you’re dealing with all of that, ordinary life carries on.
Relationships, responsibilities, things you’d hoped to do, places you’d like to go and people you’d like to see. Sometimes those are the things that gradually get squeezed out.
You don’t necessarily want to stop looking for answers. But you might want the whole business of managing your health to feel less demanding, and to have more time and energy for the rest of your life.
Sometimes it helps to talk it all through with someone who can listen, ask questions and help you look at things from a different angle.
That’s where I can help.
You might recognise yourself here...
You’ve spent so much time researching your health that you’re no longer sure what’s useful, but you’re worried about missing something important.
Every appointment or new recommendation seems to give you something else to think about, organise or decide.
You’ve tried so many different things that it’s difficult to know what’s made a difference.
Your own interests, plans or social life have gradually taken a back seat to illness or caring for someone else.
Life hasn’t turned out quite as you expected, and you’re finding it difficult to adjust to what’s changed.
You’d like things to feel more manageable, with a little more time and energy for the people and things you enjoy.
You don’t need to recognise yourself in every example.
Sometimes you simply reach a point where it would help to talk things through.
A chance to look at the whole picture
When you’re caught up in a complicated situation, it can be difficult to see things clearly.
You might be juggling conflicting health information, trying to work out what deserves your attention, or struggling to find space for anything beyond your health or caring responsibilities.
I offer a chance to sit down together and look at what’s going on.
I’ll listen, ask questions and help you untangle things. We can explore what’s most important to you, what might be making life unnecessarily complicated and whether there’s a different or simpler way to approach something.
Sometimes that leads to a practical idea or a clearer sense of where to focus. Other times, it’s about recognising something you’ve been missing and finding a small way to bring it back into your life.
There’s no set programme to follow and no pressure to make big changes. We start with your situation and what you’d most like help with.
Making the demands of illness more manageable.
Making more room for life.
A note from Jo
My family spent years living alongside complex chronic illness.
Our lives revolved around appointments, research, treatments, supplements and trying to understand symptoms that seemed to change from one day to the next.
Some of what we learnt genuinely helped our son, who eventually became well again. But I also remember just how much of our time and energy was consumed by trying to get there.
We weren’t only living with illness. We were living inside the management of illness.
That experience has stayed with me.
My background is in biological sciences, research, science communication and publishing, and I’m also a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach.
I’ve always enjoyed investigating complicated questions, making sense of information and looking at situations from different angles. But my family’s experience also taught me how important it is not to lose sight of everyday life while you’re trying to improve your health.
Finding answers matters. So does having a life while you’re looking for them.
How I can help
If managing your health or navigating life alongside illness has become overwhelming, we can look at what’s going on together.
Whether you’re trying to make sense of information, work through competing priorities or find more room for the things you enjoy, we’ll focus on what’s most useful to you.
Talk things through with me
Explore my articles and resources
I write about health research, treatments, supplements and some of the ideas people encounter when living with complex illness.
My aim is to make complicated information easier to understand, question claims and help you make more sense of what you’re reading.
'Making Sense of Your Supplements'
If you’ve accumulated supplements over time and aren’t entirely sure why you’re taking some of them, my free guide can help you take stock of what you’re using and identify questions worth discussing with your healthcare professional.
A few kind words
‘I turned up in tears, embarrassed and overwhelmed, and she just listened.’
Hannah H.
‘She never rushed me and never made me feel stupid for worrying.’
Rachel S.
‘I finally feel like I’m not failing my daughter anymore.’
Kate W.
Would it help to talk?
You don’t need to have everything worked out before getting in touch.
My one-to-one sessions offer an opportunity to talk through what you’re dealing with, get a different perspective and explore what might help make things more manageable.
There’s no set programme and no obligation to book ongoing sessions.