Medical Medium Podcast

Unless you lived it, this is a hard one for many to understand, and it’s called Mattress Island. Mattress Island is a place that becomes someone’s personal, private sanctuary when they are forced to stay in bed more hours than the normal, nighttime sleep hours that people who are healthy enough experience. The chronically ill spend the majority of time in bed not because they truly want to, but because they don’t feel well enough to function optimally, or at least to function enough to live their lives mostly out of bed. Many switch from Mattress Island to Couch Island at any given time, but eventually spend most of their time in their beds—their symptoms are consuming them on so many levels, symptoms that are mostly debilitating. People on Mattress Island have trouble showering, doing basic kitchen chores and even have trouble holding themselves up. Vertigo, dizziness, heart palpitations, fatigue, anxiety, aches, pains, eye blurriness, and brain fog are just a few of the symptoms they may suffer from. Unless