Managing Work, Energy, and Career Growth With Autoimmune Disease

Dr. Amy Behimer joins Julia Toothacre to discuss how autoimmune disease can affect energy, capacity, professional identity, and career decisions. Drawing from Amy’s experience living with multiple sclerosis while building a career as a pharmacist, healthcare leader, and coach, they explore sustainable workload, career growth, workplace flexibility, disclosure, and what to consider when your health changes what you need from your work.

Living with an autoimmune disease can affect far more than your health. Changes in energy, mobility, concentration, stress tolerance, or physical capacity can influence how you work, what support you need, whether advancement still makes sense, and how you think about your career over time.

In this episode, Julia Toothacre speaks with Dr. Amy Behimer about what it looks like to manage your career when autoimmune disease is part of your reality. Amy is a board-certified health and wellness coach, pharmacist, healthcare leader, and founder of Amy Behimer Coaching. She also lives with multiple autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, which was diagnosed when she was 27 and already several years into her career.

Julia and Amy discuss the pressure many high achievers feel to keep pushing even when their health requires a different approach. Amy shares how her MS diagnosis changed her relationship with achievement and why she eventually realized the strategy that had helped her succeed earlier in her career wasn't necessarily going to help her manage the next stage.

They also explore how to think about capacity when your health and energy aren't consistent. Instead of assuming work has to be done a certain way, Amy encourages people to experiment with how they accomplish their goals and identify where they may have flexibility in their schedule, responsibilities, or approach to the work.

The conversation also challenges the assumption that career growth always means moving higher on the organizational ladder. Amy has intentionally remained at the people-management level while continuing to develop professionally, allowing her to do work she enjoys while managing her health in a way that works for her.

Julia and Amy also discuss the role managers can play in helping employees prioritize workload and work from their strengths, as well as the personal considerations involved in disclosing an invisible illness at work. They explore what can happen when changing health affects your ability to perform parts of your job and how a change in health can sometimes require you to reconsider your work, career path, or professional identity.

Throughout the conversation, they return to the importance of understanding your current circumstances rather than automatically assuming that chronic illness means you need to leave your job, stop pursuing growth, or become less ambitious.

What Julia and Amy Discuss

• How autoimmune disease can affect energy, mobility, cognition, stress, and work
• Why Amy’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis changed her relationship with achievement and career success
• What happens when working harder is no longer a sustainable professional strategy
• How to think about capacity when your health and energy fluctuate
• Why changing how you work doesn't necessarily require changing your ambitions
• Why career growth does not always require another promotion
• How managers can help employees prioritize workload and work from their strengths
• How to think about disclosure when an autoimmune disease or chronic illness is not visible
• What happens when changing health affects your job, career path, or professional identity

About Dr. Amy Behimer

Dr. Amy Behimer, PharmD, NBC-HWC, is a board-certified health and wellness coach, pharmacist, and founder of Amy Behimer Coaching. Living with multiple autoimmune diseases herself, Amy combines evidence-based science with practical behavior change strategies to help people with autoimmune disease feel better, function better, and stay consistent with habits that matter most.

With nearly two decades of experience as a clinical pharmacist and healthcare leader, Amy has developed and led innovative clinical programs while building a coaching practice dedicated to sustainable health behavior change. She is passionate about translating complex health information into simple, practical habits that fit real life.

Through her coaching programs, speaking, podcast, and writing, Amy helps people move beyond overwhelm, build confidence, and make sustainable improvements in their energy, health, and quality of life.