Aoki Lee Simmons Opens Up About Having An Autoimmune Disease

Model and Harvard University student Aoki Lee Simmons recently took to TikTok to discuss what dealing with an autoimmune disease is like for her. Captioned, "If your health is tricky or isolating in any way, I love you," Simmons explains the struggles openly for anyone who can relate.

The model begins her video explaining that she's not the type of person to go online and openly cry about anything. "But I'm sure a lot of people can relate," she said. "Sometimes being in poor or questionable health is so isolating."

She then explains that she has Hashimoto's, an autoimmune disease, and anemia. "My grandma calls me a delicate flower. I'm just kind of sick sometimes," she said. "So I was having a great day. I got up, I went to pilates with my friend. We were hanging out, her other friend came and we were walking around Boston. I just started to get a headache, which happens, and then it just, out of nowhere, we're in the stationary store, it hit me. I got so dizzy. I had to just drag myself home."

She continued to explain the symptoms that came over her and that she had to cancel the rest of her plans for the day. "I had dinner plans," she said. "I was trying to make sure I saw my friends cause I'm graduating and some of them took gap years so they're still gonna be here and just, I had plans and then I couldn't get up."

Simmons then called her boyfriend to let him know how she was feeling, who asked if she needed to go to the hospital. "No, no, it just happens. I'm just a weird person," she continued. "I feel sick. I feel nauseous. I throw up. I don't know what's happening."

Simmons was supposed to meet with her friends at 6 p.m. but by 5:15 p.m. she could barely type or talk. She filmed her video at nearly midnight because she had napped from 5 until about 8 or 9 p.m. and was then awake at the odd hour, but still not feeling well.

"I had to cancel my plans. It's so isolating," she continued. "To make plans and not know if you're gonna feel well and attend them or if you're just gonna have to go home."

She concluded her video with a message for anyone who can relate to her story and also deals with an autoimmune disease.

"If anyone else is a delicate flower as my grandma would say, like it's so annoying getting to the bottom of it. It's not like you could say, oh it's my autoimmune disease or oh it's anemia, or you just don't know what it is. It's not always fixable and sometimes you're just that person who has to go home," she said.

"That was like so poorly explained, but if your health is tricky, love you, here for you. Sometimes it sucks when you feel like your friends have, I don't know, more energy or all that than you. So you know, love you guys."

Simmons' content hit home for many of her followers, who took to the comment section to discuss their experiences. "Chronic illness is so hard. I have chronic pain… it’s so hard no one understands," one person wrote. "My anxiety used to do this to me. It got so bad that I would have to cancel plans left and right. I hated it and felt like no one understood," added another

Another follower deals with the same struggles and wrote, "My life everyday I also have an autoimmune disease it’s very exhausting 🥺 hugs to you 💜."

"Autoimmune is so hard... you never know what's coming next. Most ppl I know don't understand. You look good on outside inside different story," one person added, to which Simmons responded, "I feel like it’s rlly not understood at all."