When I was first diagnosed with MS, even before it was definite, I started looking into it. I wanted to learn more, about how the disease works, what treatments were out there, how people handled it, what the future may look like for me. I think most people do the same thing when they are …
THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK BRRZZT BRRZZT BRRZZT BRRZZT BRRZZT The sounds are deafening, but more than that, you feel them vibrate every inch of your body. Invisible signals are being sent through you by the coils of incredibly powerful magnets trying to make a picture of your brain and spinal cord, trying to see if …
Whilst Covid-19 is another kind of flu, and it’s likely that you’ve had a coronavirus flu in the past, it is significantly more serious than what you would consider the seasonal flu. The seasonal flu typically kills 0.1% of those it infects each year, Covid-19 is currently killing around 1% of those it is infecting, …
A relapse is a scary experience. For me, I lost my ability to walk properly without falling over, hearing in my right ear, and strength in my right arm. I thought it was permanent. After about a month those symptoms abated and I could hear, lift and carry my son, open things, and walk again. …
It’s summer in Australia and it’s hot. On any sunny day you can see the sweat beading on the brows of colleagues, the damp patches in the middle of back on shirts, everyone gets generally icky. For people with MS, the heat can make their daily experience even worse by exacerbating symptoms, rendering some people …
One of the big things I advocate is to take control of the things that are within your control. With a disease like multiple sclerosis we can’t control when our relapses happen, nor how they will affect us. What we can control are other aspects of our health that are known to have negative impacts …
Researchers at McGill University in Canada have demonstrated a link between the amount of methionine in a diet and the development and progression of multiple sclerosis, having implications for not only MS but other auto-immune diseases.
Getting a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is a hard pill to swallow. The future can feel more uncertain than it did before and you can get caught thinking about all the “what if’s“. One of the biggest fears I’ve had to deal with is that of being a burden and feeling alone in my journey. …
Researchers in Austria published a small study in December 2019 showing potentially protective effects of learning a second language on the decline of grey matter in the brain, a common indicator of MS.
Unfortunately, multiple sclerosis is often misattributed to other conditions when symptoms first appear as it shares so many characteristics of other often benign conditions. My MS was almost missed when my first relapse was diagnosed as vertigo. If I hadn’t pushed to keep investigating my symptoms, I would have seen a physiotherapist to treat vertigo …