Let Me Introduce You...

If you do not know what MS is, let me give you an introduction: You, meet Multiple Sclerosis. I don't know if you'll get along but you probably won't need to unless you've been diagnosed as well as introduced.

MS is a mystery disease. If you go to 100 different websites, including Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown University and so on, you'll see all kinds of different theories and assertions about the disease.

This is what can be basically agreed-upon: we're pretty sure its an auto-immune disease, meaning the body does not know how to turn off the militant immune system, and it ends up attacking its own tissues. In the case of MS, the brain, spine, and eyes are under attack. More specifically, the myelin (or protective "jacket" around the nerves) in the brain, spine, and eyes are under attack.

Both men & women get it, but more women than men, and it is normally noticed between the ages of 22 - 35 when the symptoms become more obvious. It is supposedly more prevalent in areas further away from the equator, although I haven't researched that assertion.

Neurologists are the doctors that diagnose and treat MS. They do this, in my experience, by setting you up in numerous scary and painful tests like blood tests, spinal tap (aka lumbar puncture), MRIs, MRAs, and whatever weird medical bizarreness they're into this year. Then they try and find anything else that it can be - a brain tumor, Lyme's disease, lupus, cancer, avian flu, West Nile virus, and so on. This process is totally alarming, as these terms roll right off the tongues of the neurologists and then they send you home each week wondering what horrible future you might be facing. It takes between 5 days to a couple weeks for most of the results to come back, so don't plan on sleeping or eating because you'll be freaking out the whole time!

By the end of those couple weeks, you've googled a few things and decided MS is not really the bottom of the barrel in that group and so you better hope for that! That attitude will come and go as you settle in to this, I concentrated on being happy that no one had to cut through my skull for this disease, since that seemed like a perk at the time. It still does actually. I also appreciated that I didn't have to be sterilized and quarantined in a secret army base somewhere for this particular diagnosis.

Here is the most important news about MS - most MS people have relapsing/remitting MS and even though you may have to deal with relapses for the rest of your life, you will also most likely have remittances for the rest of your life. That means it will come and go. Concentrate on the "and go" part, its more important.

Other good news: even a couple decades ago MS people had little-to-no options for treatments and were completely at the mercy of the disease. Today, a handful of drugs exist that nearly stop the progression of the disease in its tracks and allow MS people to go on with fewer, less serious relapses, and so life does not have to stop as you know it. It needs to bend, yes, but not stop.

You can still have children (with the advice of your doctor), and MS people can adopt children too.

If you know an MS person, you can expect them to have good weeks and bad weeks. They may have a "bad arm" or leg for a few weeks, and then be back to normal for a few months. They may have to go to bed earlier than you, they may have to eat better than you, and they may have to inject medication with a tiny machine every couple of days, but they are still themselves. Give them time to deal with the disease and they'll be back to normal before too long.

Keep visiting my blog to find out more about how to be a friend to an MS person, how to deal with the diagnosis if you are an MS person (I'm not saying I have the right way, but I'll share my way), and just what its like to have your world turned upside down by a neurological event like this.

If you are an MS person, or friend of an MS person, please comment to me. I'd love to hear from you. I'm new to MS and I don't know anyone else who has it yet. Peace.