Terese Millhouse of From Chronic To Cured Wellness shares her life of resilience amid chronic pain

A Tasmanian businesswoman and mum who lost her Iraq War veteran husband to young onset dementia amid her own chronic pain journey wants to create a “community of auto-immune warriors”.

Terese Millhouse has been named a finalist in the AusMumpreneur Awards, with her book titled From Chronic to Cured. Picture: Chris Kidd

A Tasmanian businesswoman and mum who lost her Iraq War veteran husband to young onset dementia amid her own chronic pain journey wants to create a “community of auto-immune warriors”.

Lindisfarne woman Terese Millhouse, who founded From Chronic to Cured Wellness two years ago in order to share lessons from her own battles with chronic pain, said that her new mission in life is to “help this epidemic of auto-immune symptoms women are struggling with”.

“And I’ve only just scratched the surface,” said Ms Millhouse, who has lived with Hashimoto’s disease [which leads to hypothyroidism, a reduction in the thyroid’s hormone production] for 20 years and “debilitating” chronic fatigue syndrome.

Ms Millhouse with her dog Daisy. Picture: Chris Kidd

From Chronic to Cured Wellness began from Ms Millhouse’s one-on-one coaching in the chronic pain and wellbeing space – she is a qualified wellness and nutrition coach – and has now evolved into more group coaching.

“I want to build a community of like-minded women with the same goals of putting in place beautiful lifestyle and nutritional tools that should just be the norm for the whole family,” Ms Millhouse said.

“I want to tell these women they aren’t alone, really build up a community of auto-immune warriors to help to spread the message about the options available.

“I don’t think there’s enough being done to tell women that the doctors office and isn’t the only thing they can do, but that there’s lifestyle factors involved.”

Much of her advice is contained within her debut self-published book, ‘From Chronic To Cured: The 4-Step Method Helping Career Mums Overcome The Challenges Of Chronic Fatigue And Thyroid auto-immune Symptoms, At Home’.

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This year has been one to savour for Ms Millhouse for different reasons also: she has recently been nominated as a finalist for the AusMumpreneur Awards in the Wellness Services Business Of The Year category, as well as the Healthy Tasmania Health and Wellbeing Awards in the Community Achievement category.

Things did not always look so rosy for Ms Millhouse, whose husband Matthew, an Iraq War veteran, died of young onset dementia in 2015, aged just 36. Ms Millhouse has a biological daughter and two stepchildren, all in their teenage years, and a fiance, Adam, who keeps her “grounded”.

“I do feel very blessed,” she said.

If she could travel back to the time before she understood what was happening to her body, a time when she felt helpless in the face of unimaginable struggle – both her late husband’s and her own, she would tell herself that things will get better.

“I would say that I’ve got it in me, there is so much more to life than the chronic pain that I’m in, and to never give up,” Ms Millhouse said.