This awareness campaign is the result of Fátima’s story. Born and raised in Mexico City, she was a healthy teenager back in early 2020 when, from one day to the other, her life changed dramatically. Fátima started reporting severe pain in her stomach, nausea, lack of appetite, bloating and slow motility. After visiting probably more than 50 doctors from various specialties in two years, she was diagnosed with gastroparesis, a gastrointestinal functional disorder generally caused by diabetes and supposedly incurable. However, Fátima tested negative for diabetes and doctors were unsure about the root cause of this uncommon disorder.

Three years went by since the beginning of her symptoms and no medication worked to eliminate her pain or nausea, causing her immense suffering. However, one day Fátima decided to be tested for dysautonomia because of other symptoms apparently unrelated to gastroparesis, and the result came back positive. In consequence, she started taking medication for this disorder and a couple of weeks later, her “incurable” gastroparesis was gone. Completely gone, no symptoms whatsoever. It turns out, after talking with some cardiologists and neurologists familiar with dysautonomia, that her gastroparesis was a symptom of dysautonomia. With this information new to her, Fátima and her family decided to raise awareness about this disorder and its resulting conditions to prevent other people from suffering for years without an answer about their symptoms, in contrast to Fátima.