Vital voices: Erron's story living with Crohn's disease

Professional athlete Erron describes his journey with Crohn's disease and getting treatment without health insurance.

Transcript

00:00

[MUSIC PLAYING] Advocate for yourself. You gotta fight for yourself. If you don't fight for yourself, nobody else will.

00:12

My name is Erron. I was playing basketball professionally in Argentina. My whole team was food poisoned, and that particular night

00:21

was actually the beginning of my Crohn's disease. Here in the US, without insurance,

00:27

medication can be expensive. It was just a nightmare trying to receive the medication itself.

00:33

Insurance companies will put you through step treatment. You have one medication, gotta go through that or one examination that fails and you go to the next,

00:41

so that can take up to a couple of years to finally receive the medication that you need.

00:48

Speak up and allow the doctors to know that, you know, the symptoms that you are having are consistent.

00:54

Keep a diary or a written record so that you can refer back to, you know, when you are having minor or major issues.

01:04

Numerous companies actually have these patients assistance programs, so if you're able to receive these email--

01:11

the email addresses or the phone numbers to these companies, you'll be able to apply for patients assistance

01:17

and being able to receive medication free.