The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness

A Memoir

By: Sarah Ramey

Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Sarah Ramey

"A best memoir of 2020" —BookPage

The darkly funny memoir of Sarah Ramey’s years-long battle with a mysterious illness that doctors thought was all in her head—but wasn’t. A revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are ignored.

In her harrowing, defiant, and unforgettable memoir, Sarah Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a prolonged and elusive condition that destroyed her health but that doctors couldn't diagnose or treat. Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological.
The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a memoir with a mission: to help the millions of (mostly) women who suffer from unnamed or misunderstood conditions--autoimmune illnesses, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, chronic pain, and many more. Ramey's pursuit of a diagnosis and cure for her own mysterious illness becomes a page-turning medical mystery that reveals a new understanding of today's chronic illnesses as ecological in nature, driven by modern changes to the basic foundations of health, from the quality of our sleep, diet, and social connections to the state of our microbiomes. Her book will open eyes, change lives, and, ultimately, change medicine.

Necessary

Validating read! I feel seen and I’m so grateful, though I hate what Sarah went through.

Eye Opener

Ramey teaches us so much about not only modern mystery illness, but also her deep journey into her own dark depths. Queen of the Dead! This is an empowering wakeup call to a sick culture in need of a reset.

Enlightening

Sad, horrible story to have gone through such things. This is exactly what I needed to hear. No more traditional doctors, functional medicine only!

Don’t miss this

Impeccably researched and deeply moving, I’ve bought this book for a dozen people already. May you find it as important as I did.

I found my tribe

It’s so refreshing to know I’m not alone in my struggles with health. I kept saying, “Yes! Yes! That’s me!” throughout the whole book. I am a WOMI!