Ilana Jacqueline

Ilana Jacqueline is author of the award-winning blog, Let’s Feel Better. She started the blog at age 22 to share her humbling, hilarious, and heartfelt experiences coping with chronic illness. From full contact fights with skull-cramping migraines to making peace with being a human pincushion, she writes boldly and unabashedly about breaking down, getting back up, and pulling off the bandage that is “coming out” about the shame and frustration of living with chronic illness. Jacqueline is managing editor of The RARE Daily for the international rare and genetic disease nonprofit, Global Genes. She also freelances for pop culture magazines and websites including Cosmopolitan.com and is a columnist for the patient-centered immunodeficiency magazine, IG Living. Her work has been published in the Sun Sentinel, the Happy Herald, The Boca Raton Observer, The Palm Beach Post, Today’s Teen Magazine, Today’s Teen Online, Materniteens, Lemondrop, xoVain, and xoJane. She lives with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a form of dysautonomia, and primary immune deficiency disease. As a health advocate and regularly interviewed expert on chronic illness, Jacqueline looks to help patients advocate for themselves at their most vulnerable moments. She recently created a nonprofit organization called Chronic Connect, to help patients who have ongoing disease with support, career guidance, and financial planning. Chronic Connect also creates care packages for patients and caregivers going through difficult periods. You can learn more at http://www.chronicconnect.org. Jacqueline lives with her biochemist fiancé and literally the cutest apricot poodle you’ve ever seen in Boca Raton, FL.