Category Archives: Multiple Sclerosis

Managing MS vs. Living with MS

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“Are they the same thing?

October 1, 2012

Is there a difference between Managing MS versus Living with MS? Yes and no. It depends on who you ask.

On September 24, The NPR Diane Rehm Show aired “Diagnosing, Treating and Living with MS. A panel of experts—neurologists/MS Specialists including a doctor who has MS—answered audience questions about diagnosing, treating and living with multiple sclerosis.

My first response after listening to the show was that the doctors in the discussion did not truly address “living with MS.” The responses were dominated by treatments and medications that patients should take. Questions that were asked about symptoms like spasticity and fatigue or lifestyle activities like diet, stress and exercise were glossed over with comments like “research hasn’t yet shown…” or reverted back to the necessity of getting on a treatment ASAP.

I have had MS for 32 years, and while I think the treatments available and new ones on the horizon are exciting, I would like to point out that there are so many effective ways to manage MS daily that should be understood that are non-medicinal.

Management of MS should be a two-pronged approach: medicinal AND non-medicinal. A person should not only rely or be concerned about drugs to solve their problems with MS. It’s not enough to just “live with it” and think that having an injection or popping a pill will magically take away or minimize the problems MS burdens a person with.

There are numerous things an MSer can do to manage and control (yes, control!) both the symptoms and the course of their disease without the drugs. But this all takes knowledge, support, work, dedication and discipline. There’s no easy way out of it, but trust me, it works!

First, a healthy lifestyle should be maintained to prevent illness, stress, etc. that can help minimize further relapses/damage to the CNS. This means keeping your resistance up and body healthy through proper exercise, diet, stress management, sleep/rest etc. Illness/infections often trigger a relapse by activating an immune system response with subsequent damage to the CNS. Extra precautions to prevent accidents/falls (like using disability aids) would help accomplish the same thing.

Second, there are many things a person can do to manage symptoms. For example, I suffer with much spasticity; by doing daily stretching/exercising, while taking baclofen (a medication to reduce spasticity), the stiffness and tightness is greatly reduced for me. Another example is the importance of learning good bladder management from a neuro-urologist. Eighty percent of persons with MS will suffer from a bladder issue at some point. Putting up with a leaky bladder by wearing pads is not only distressing, it is dangerous. Urinary tract infections (UTI’s) are common and can lead to complications and undesirable consequences.

Understanding the sensitivity of MS to so many factors that intensify symptoms can enable a MSer to take certain actions to calm their symptoms. A prime example is the negative effect that heat has on symptoms like fatigue, endurance, balance… One can learn easy ways to counteract it quickly by using a cooling vest, ice packs, drinking ice water and taking a cold shower. Fatigue—the hallmark symptom of MS that affects 90% of MSers—is another symptom that can often be managed by frequent resting, lifestyle changes, support from others…

Alternatives therapies have helped physical, emotional, and mental issues for many, many folks with MS. These things include yoga, trigger-point therapy, pilates, deep breathing, tai chi, reflexology to name some of them. Finding things to make a person feel better goes a lo-o-o-o-ong way. Some things work for some better than for others, but how do you know if you don’t try them?

After the Diane Rehm show was over, the doctors continued to answer questions submitted by people. Dr. William Shaffer, an attending neurologist who also has lived with MS since 2002 had this to say in response to a couple of off-the-air questions:

“The disease modifying medications do not directly help with symptoms in MS. At the same time, if the disease is being modified with a proper medication, sometimes people do feel better with their symptoms. However, there are many medications/management for the many symptoms we as people with MS can experience.”

“I don’t know any specific numbers on people who didn’t take medications and how they are doing. If you look at it like this, these medications are to delay disability, slow progression and some can have improvements on MRIs. I can tell you that I have seen people in my clinic that had been doing well for years and so didn’t start any medications. But, then they had an attack that hit them quite hard. Then they wanted to go on a medication, “to get better.” I told them that the medications are to keep from getting worse and not to make one better.”

Finally, one of the doctors had this remark: “We encourage patients to really think about lifestyle issues, to maximize their activity and exercise, and also to maximize healthy diet, because we now know those things do impact the amount of residual disability people have.”

I wish that comment had been made and talked about during the show.

So if you asked me if there is a difference between managing MS and living with MS, I would respond “yes!” Managing MS should be an integral part of living with MS. I know many people who have had MS for 20-30+ years and I know they would respond to this question the same way.

But the opinion of the person with MS is what ultimately matters. Do you want to just live with MS, or do you want to take some control and manage your MS while living with it?

The choice is yours!

For more info about me and what I am talking about, please go to www.DebbieMS.com

Needed: MS Awareness and Understanding

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“Wear that Orange Ribbon!”

August 29, 2012

Multiple Sclerosis doesn’t discriminate when it comes to who gets it. The playing field is equal.

It doesn’t matter if you are white, black, Asian, or Native American. Doesn’t matter if you are male or female, though females are 2-3 times more likely to have MS. Doesn’t matter which continent you live on, though it is more prevalent in northern latitudes. Doesn’t matter if you are young or old, though the onset is usually between the ages of twenty and fifty. And it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor.

Even when the statistics reflect a higher percentage of occurrences in certain groups, there are still no exceptions. A person living in the tropics or a child can still develop MS.

When it comes to the types of symptoms one gets, the course of the disease, the duration of a relapse, or the amount of disability one experiences, MS doesn’t discriminate there either. No two people have the same identical case; no two people respond to treatments equally.

What is not equal is the amount of support an MSer can get depending on their financial situation. Now, before I go on, I want to make myself clear: MS as an illness is just as difficult and interfering to live with whether a person is rich or poor.

Now, having said that, here’s where inequality exists.

I am an “ordinary” person, like most persons with MS. Middle-to-low income. When my disability progressed, I had to quit my job. We were lucky to have enough money to pay bills every month, but there were no extras. Before my husband retired, I had to take care of our son, house, cooking, shopping, washing, paying bills, tax preparation, and so forth as best as I could. Now that he is retired, I am still lucky in that he helps me with all of these chores; however, we are on fixed income and each year the dollar gets squeezed more and more.

Now I don’t begrudge a person of wealthier means. They are still suffering too, and it is not anyone’s fault that they are richer than me. It’s just that I have the added stress and physical fatigue of having to do these things on my own. Of course I have the support of family and friends who lend a hand to do these things. And mental and emotional support available through MS organizations and peers.

But many times it is not enough to get through each day’s to-do list. Too often there is no safety net or easy lifeline when a job loss occurs or health insurance is lost.

I’m going to stick my neck out and say MS is harder on the “ordinary” person. The additional physical, mental, and emotional stress of an ordinary person has a negative effect on our MS both in the short and long term, probably causing our MS to be worse overall.

So, what’s my point? The point is that I want everyone to be educated about what MS is and does to an ordinary person. There are famous people in the spotlight who have MS and are creating awareness—like Montel Williams, Ann Romney, Jack Osborn. But their image doesn’t realistically project MS in the sense of the majority of us.

Many of us have been told “You look so good”, but these celebrities look too good. Again, through no fault of their own, the way media presents them causes misconceptions. So now there are two stereotypes at opposite ends of the spectrum: the dilapidated person in a wheelchair and the normal looking person so refreshed, energized and high-spirited.

The people in the middle, like the middle class, need to get into center stage for once. The “ordinary” person with MS needs a voice and attention on a national level. We have fallen through the cracks.

If someone wears a pink ribbon, everyone knows what that stands for. If it is an orange ribbon, most people wouldn’t have a clue what it stands for. The MS community needs celebrities with MS like Montel Williams to wear an orange ribbon everyday to increase awareness. The MS community also needs to wear an orange ribbon to build an identity on a daily basis. This includes the top brass of all MS Associations as well as their employees and volunteers.

But, in addition to awareness, I believe everyone needs a basic understanding of what MS really is:

MS is an unpredictable, invisible, interfering, often disabling neurological disorder that has no cure and isn’t fatal or contagious. One that impacts millions of people, lasts a lifetime, and has immense costs associated with it for every citizen in this country.

If that happens, more support for research, financial assistance, social security disability and other things will happen for multiple sclerosis.

Somehow, we ordinary people with MS who are also the majority have to band together and make this happen. Plus we need advocates at the national level as well.

So please put on your orange ribbon and spread the word!

www.DebbieMS.com