Kelly Waite

June 02, 2017

Kelly Waite

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For the finale of the show, we have a UK beauty queen who uses her challenges to raise awareness and hope through television and public events.

Kelly Waite

Kelly was crowned as Miss United Kingdom, and all seemed fabulous for this beauty queen. But what the public did not know was that she lived with unseen suffering behind it all. Back and forth to medical professionals, she was desperately looking for help with her mounting chronic ailments. She was diagnosed with ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia and the common accompanying nervous system and immune system ailments. She battled such harsh fatigue, along with aches and pains. This led to Kelly developing serious anxiety disorders. She went through bouts of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and even agoraphobia. She was living a hell that most people could not understand. 

Kelly decided to take her health and her life back into her own hands. She made the decision to go public with her suffering, in hopes of showing that these chronic Invisible Diseases can hit anyone, no matter how their lives seem to be on the outside. She was definitely living with invisible disease, and she was ready to help others who suffered from the same thing. As her health fluctuated, she pushed hard through the pain, to get back into the world and do something amazing with her life. 

“I would do charity runs in my high heels!” Kelly says. “ I would visit schools and do various talks, at youth clubs even. I just did everything and anything I could.” A lifelong dream of hers came true when she was asked to be the UK Ambassador for The Dream Foundation Uganda, a non profit government organization that provides an orphanage and school for children who have lost, or are losing parents to HIV/AIDS. She also wanted to raise awareness for Invisible Diseases because she says she was sick of having to explain to people why she couldn’t get out of bed and why she was constantly exhausted. “No one had heard of my chronic or autoimmune disease before, and to be honest, I don’t think they cared. As they couldn’t see my illness, it was easily forgotten or ignored. So I grew so tired and frustrated by this.” So she started contacting media outlets, telling her story on Channel 4, a major network in the United Kingdom, and for the Daily Mail, The Sun and other international networks. “Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. It’s the people who have no way of speaking up or telling their story that I do this for!” -Kelly Waite

See and support her work here:

Kelly Waite IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm8816392/