What is Mitochondrial Disease?

Kerissa • September 17, 2013

In honor of this special week across the globe, I’m going to try blogging every day through Friday.  Today I want to share some basic facts about mitochondrial disease!

Here are just some of the many symptoms:


1. More kids die from mitochondrial disease than from pediatric cancer. Shocking but true! Now that my eyes and ears are opened, I hear so many news stories and articles of kids and adults fighting this terrible disorder.

2. There are 44 different variations of mitochondrial disease. This makes diagnosing difficult and challenging. To make matters worse, there are so few mitochondrial specialists in the nation. Patients often go undiagnosed for years.

3. Every 15 minutes a child is born they will develop some type of Mito Disease by the age 10.

4. The following are some of the symptoms that I experience: fatigue, migraines, nystagmus, drooping eyelids, tremors, dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, chronic nerve pain, G.I. issues, problems with sleep, muscle weakness and atrophy, exercise intolerance, tinnitus, hypermobility, nausea, etc.

Tomorrow I will be blogging about how I first got started on this mito journey! Many of you probably don’t know what happened to me around this time one year ago…

October prayer request

By Kerissa Lee • October 19, 2025
Dear friends, At the beginning of October, I started taking a new medication for the autoimmune disease. I thought I was tolerating it just fine, but after several days passed, I began experiencing nausea, loss of appetite, weakness all over, and increased pain. 🙁 It’s like I’m experiencing another “mito crash.” I found out that this specific lupus medication affects mitochondria. That is, it causes an overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This, in turn, causes cell damage and oxidative stress. I sure wish the rheumatologists would have known about this before prescribing. But I have to remember that Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndrome is rare, and they’re not “mito experts.” Anyways, the last time I felt like this was back in May.. I’m so grateful to God that I haven’t needed to be hospitalized from this, but at the same time, I’m also sad that this happened at all, especially because I had such a nice stretch of stable health. I’d really appreciate your prayers, that this muscle weakness can resolve soon, and that this increased pain all over will get back to my baseline. Every time I have a “mito crash,” it feels like I’m fighting the flu which always sucks. The pain has been hard to bear. And whenever I’m in the thick of it, it’s difficult to remember that this too will eventually pass. 😢 Pray that I will endure and follow Jesus’ example like this passage from Hebrews 12:1-2– “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross...” Thank you all so much for praying for me. ❤️

Thank you! (+ a prayer request)

By Kerissa Lee • October 4, 2025
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." James 1:2-3

Praises & Prayer Requests

By Kerissa Lee • September 3, 2025
"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23