When your doctor says “demyelination” and keeps talking like you’re supposed to already know what that means, that’s not a you problem.

That’s a system that wasn’t built to make sure you actually understood what’s happening inside your own body. October is Health Literacy Month, and for Black women living with MS, lupus, or NMOSD, health literacy isn’t just about reading a pamphlet. It’s about being able to sit in an appointment and fully understand what your doctor is telling you, why they’re recommending a certain treatment, and what your options actually are, so you can make decisions that feel like yours. Because here’s the thing: you can’t advocate for yourself if the language being used to describe your own condition feels like a foreign language. And too many of us have nodded along in a doctor’s office, gone home, and Googled everything they just said because nobody took the time to break it down. You deserve to understand your diagnosis in plain language. You deserve to know what your medications are doing, what your lab results mean, and what questions to ask before you agree to a treatment plan. That’s not extra, that’s the bare minimum. That’s also why we built a health literacy glossary on our website, so you can look up the terms you’re hearing in your appointments and actually understand them on your own time, in language that makes sense. Your health is yours, and the language around it should be too. Check out the glossary at weareillms.com #WeAreILLMatic #HealthLiteracyMonth #ChronicIllnessCommunity #BlackWomenWithMS #LupusAwareness