Filled with hundreds of tips, suggestions, and strategies, this guide offers practical medical solutions in clear language. It explains how to develop and maintain exercise and nutrition programs, manage symptoms, determine when to seek medical help, work effectively with doctors, properly use medications and minimize side effects, find community resources, discuss the illness with family and friends, and tailor social activities for particular conditions. Written by six medical professionals, this book encourages an individual approach to the process, with the ultimate goal being greater self-management. Originally based on a five-year study conducted at Stanford University with hundreds of volunteers, this work has grown to include the feedback of medical professionals and thousands of people with chronic conditions all over the world.