Trapped in the hell between sick and well and how to break free
BUT YOU LOOK FINE BOOK PROMOTION
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The Effects of Chronic Illness Don’t End When Your Health Crisis Does
Medicine is designed to diagnose illness, treat it, and declare patients cured. But it’s not designed to help people recover from the psychological and neurological impact of being sick.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 194 million Americans – over 76% of the population – live with at least one chronic illness. While many eventually stabilize or are told they are “better,” millions remain stuck in fear, anxiety, hypervigilance, and a deep mistrust of their own bodies. They are no longer actively ill, but they are not truly well. And traditional medicine offers no pamphlet or guidebook for navigating this. Until now.
In BUT YOU LOOK FINE: Trapped In The Hell Between Sick and Well and How to Break Free, patient advocate and health coach Amy Kurtz addresses this overlooked gap in recovery by naming it for the very first time. She calls it Medical Trauma Brain (MTB) a trauma-driven state that keeps the nervous system locked in fight-or-flight long after illness has been resolved. BUT YOU LOOK FINE is the first book to identify, define, and address Medical Trauma Brain, validating an experience that millions live with but have never been able to name.
Kurtz argues that while medicine marks recovery as the end of the story, for many patients it is the beginning of a hidden struggle. Being told “you’re fine” can be deeply destabilizing when the body no longer feels safe. MTB explains why people remain stuck in survival mode after illness and why traditional recovery narratives fall short.
With the patient experience at the center, the book explores:
- The mechanisms of MTB: What trauma is, what makes this specific kind of medical trauma so unique and how a medical system that is supposed to help us (and often does) can also hurt patients
- Why getting better can feel worse than being sick: How dismissal, minimization, and loss of validation compound trauma once patients are no longer “ill enough” to be believed
- How to calm a nervous system that never stood down. Practical tools to regulate anxiety, process fear, and interrupt the fight-or-flight response that lingers after illness
- A new model of recovery: How routines, movement, nutrition, sleep, and personal agency help restore trust in the body
- Trauma-informed therapies for post-illness recovery: Including cognitive behavioral therapy, somatic experiencing, EMDR and more
- Insights drawn from interviews with leading trauma experts, including Dr. Gabor Maté and Dr. Peter Levine, helping situate Medical Trauma Brain within the broader science of stored survival stress and nervous system healing
BUT YOU LOOK FINE reframes recovery as a critical, underserved phase of healing that deserves recognition, language, and care.
Dr. Mark Hyman, MD has called BUT YOU LOOK FINE “a paradigm-shifting book and a must-read.”
If you've been carrying the weight of living with a chronic illness – if you're tired of just surviving and ready to actually feel free again, then this book is for you.
Get BUT YOU LOOK FINE and grab your bonuses at https://amykurtz.com/but-you-look-fine/
Newsletter / Substack Blurb or Short Feature
Have you ever lived through chronic, acute, or pervasive illness, and been told you are physically better or cured, but emotionally you still don’t feel “well?”
After years you’ve finally found the right diagnosis, gone through all the right treatments, taken all the right medications – but you still find yourself suffering. What is this hell between sick and well?
In her latest book, BUT YOU LOOK FINE: Trapped In The Hell Between Sick and Well and How to Break Free, patient advocate Amy Kurtz breaks the silence on the painful and pervasive experience of “Medical Trauma Brain" and offers practical tools and practices that helped her break free.
According to the CDC, 194 million Americans – 76.4% of the population – live with at least one chronic illness. In BUT YOU LOOK FINE, Amy shares her deeply personal story of living with a complex chronic illness and validates an experience that millions live with but have never been able to name.
Get BUT YOU LOOK FINE and learn more about Amy and her important work at https://amykurtz.com/but-you-look-fine/
Newsletter / Substack P.S. Copy
Check out BUT YOU LOOK FINE: Trapped In The Hell Between Sick and Well and How to Break Free. A new book from patient advocate Amy Kurtz, is a deeply personal story of living with a complex chronic illness and a guide for what others living with a chronic illness can do to thrive.
Dr. Mark Hyman, MD has called BUT YOU LOOK FINE “a paradigm-shifting book and a must-read.”
Get BUT YOU LOOK FINE and grab your bonuses at https://amykurtz.com/but-you-look-fine/
Social Media Captions and Images
SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGES AND COPY
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Post 1 Headline/Topic: "The Problem Nobody Talks About"
Are you living with, or have lived through, a chronic health condition and survived the medical system, endured the tests and treatments, and powered through the uncertainty only to hear your doctors say “you're fine” now?
You’ve gone through serious health crises, made it to the other side physically, but still don’t feel like “yourself” emotionally. Bodies healed. But our minds? Our hearts? That's a different story!
Spoiler alert: You’re not alone!
Patient advocate Amy Kurtz gets it. In her new book BUT YOU LOOK FINE: Trapped In The Hell Between Sick and Well and How to Break Free, Amy names this painful experience as “Medical Trauma Brain” and writes about her own personal experiences, but more importantly, shows readers how to actually heal from it.
If you have ever experienced illness yourself, or have loved someone who has, you need to get this book. It is essential reading.
📚Preorder BUT YOU LOOK FINE and grab your bonuses @_amykurtz
Post 2 Headline/Topic: "Healing is NOT linear"
Here's what everyone thinks:
Once you begin healing from a chronic health condition, the journey “back to your old self” begins.
Here’s what nobody tells you:
Once you start healing, the process of building the “new you” begins. It’s about learning to trust yourself again, reconnecting with your body, and moving through the world, all in a new way. The real truth is, there has been no recovery plan, until now.
I got an early read of BUT YOU LOOK FINE: Trapped In The Hell Between Sick and Well and How to Break Free, and I was struck by how patient advocate Amy Kurtz doesn't just validate what you've been through (though she does that beautifully), she actually gives you real, doable practices you can use to:
♥️ Process what happened without reliving it
♥️ Take back control of your healing journey
♥️ Rebuild trust in your body and your healthcare team
♥️ Regulate your nervous system
♥️ Get to know yourself in a deeper and more profound way
♥️ Strengthen your relationships with the people you love
If you're tired of feeling like you’re just surviving and ready to actually thrive again, BUT YOU LOOK FINE: Trapped In The Hell Between Sick and Well is exactly what you need. It is groundbreaking, and a must read for anyone who has stared into the abyss of illness.
📚Preorder BUT YOU LOOK FINE and grab your bonuses @_amykurtz
Post 3 Headline/Topic: "You Get to Decide What Comes Next"
Having any kind of illness, whether acute or chronic, has a way of making you feel powerless. Like what happened to you gets to define you.
But it doesn't have to.
Patient advocate Amy Kurtz knows this firsthand. After her own health crisis and everything that came with it, she made a choice: She wasn't going to let the trauma of living with a chronic illness be her life’s story. And in BUT YOU LOOK FINE: Trapped In The Hell Between Sick and Well and How to Break Free, she shows you how to do the same.
This book isn't about pretending the trauma didn't happen. It's about acknowledging it, naming it (what Amy calls “Medical Trauma Brain” or MTB), understanding it, and then – this is the important part – moving through it so you can build the life you actually want.
Whether that means healing your relationship with your body, reconnecting with the people you love, or simply feeling like yourself again – all is possible. But only, if you step into it and step up for yourself.
You survived the hardest part. Now it's time to thrive.
This book is a gamechanger 📚
📚Preorder BUT YOU LOOK FINE and grab your bonuses @_amykurtz
“Amy Kurtz exposes a common occurrence that until now has gone unnamed and undiscussed by doctors and patients alike.
Not only does she reveal this roadblock to wellness, but she also offers solutions, ones that we can all apply to our lives, whether chronically ill, newly diagnosed, or labeled 'cured.'
This is a paradigm-shifting book and a must-read.”
MARK HYMAN, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of The Dr. Hyman Show
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