Sara Riggare: developing Parkinson's as a teen (ENGLISH)

Ziek. De podcast

In this two-episode series we follow Swedish patient advocate Sara Riggare’s journey from being an insecure teen who doesn’t want anybody to know about the weird symptoms she’s experiencing to becoming a badass advocate for patients’ rights.
Sara Riggare coined the Swedish term ‘spetspatient’ for patients who ‘know more than their doctor’. She is changing the Swedish healthcare system by demanding doctors to stop seeing these patients as a pain in the ass and to start taking their knowdledge, skills and experience seriously.

But Sara didn’t just come up with these ideas out of the blue. This first episode is full of Sara’s own #DoctorDrama: from her first neurologist who said her symptoms were all in her head to the one who simply declared: “You have Parkinson’s, have a good day”. But we also hear how Sara is actually glad she didn’t discover she had Parkinson’s until her thirties.

Read more about:

• Juvenile Parkinson's: information in English - information in Dutch
• Dystonia: information in English - information in Dutch