A Request to connect
Last semester at the University of Toronto I took a course that exposed me to the world of autoimmune disease, chronic illness, and the broader challenges within healthcare systems. At the time I found it intellectually interesting, but over the last few days I’ve gone much deeper down the rabbit hole.
I’ve spent hours reading patient stories, research, forums, and support communities — and one thing has become very clear to me: there’s an enormous gap between what patients actually experience day to day and what healthcare systems meaningfully capture.
People talk constantly about:
- fatigue
- flare patterns
- medication side effects
- brain fog
- diagnostic delays
- feeling dismissed
- fragmented support systems
Yet so much of this information lives scattered across Reddit posts, Facebook groups, notes apps, spreadsheets, and isolated conversations.
I’ve become really interested in the idea of building tools around autoimmune and chronic illness communities — not just another “health app,” but potentially infrastructure for better patient insight, connection, and research.
I’m still very early and mostly trying to learn. If you live with an autoimmune condition or chronic illness, I’d genuinely appreciate hearing about your experience and what you think existing tools or systems are missing.