‘Life With MS’ Has Moved!
You can find Trevis Gleason on his new Everyday Health Life With MS blog. (everydayhealth.com/columns/trevis-gleason-life-with-multiple-sclerosis)
Same great Trevis every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but in a new format that should make it easier to get to and more stable. He’s already posted the first “new blog” - check it out now! (Source: Life with MS)
Source: Life with MS - April 15, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
No Disguise for that Double Vision
The brain, even a brain with multiple sclerosis is an amazingly complex and resilient organ. We don’t see our mouth as a forkful heads from plate to gob, but the food (usually) makes it to its destination. Hear a spring Robin singing in the trees? Close your eyes and your brain will help you locate which tree and even which part of that tree to look for the bird. One pathway gets interrupted: the brain tries to reroute signal through a process known as neuroplasticity. The brain even has to flip the images which are projected onto our retina upside-down and backwards for us to see the world aright.
I believe that my bra...
Source: Life with MS - April 10, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS symptoms double vision vision and MS Source Type: blogs
“And Now it’s Time to Say Goodbye…” Annette Funicello Remembered
Mine is the generation of American children who grew up in between iterations of The Mickey Mouse Club. Still, when late 1970’s peanut better commercials brought Annette Funicello to our television screen, I fell in love like the generation of teenaged boys before me.
Today, Annette Funicello succumbed to complications of multiple sclerosis after more than twenty years fighting the disease she shared with us.
While some people don’t like to say that we “fight” MS, Annette was always open about our disease and was once quoted as saying, “”I think you only have two choices in this kind of situation. Either y...
Source: Life with MS - April 8, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: Celebrities with MS Diagnosis Grief MS and Your Feelings MS blog MS community Multiple Sclerosis celebrities with multiple sclerosis multiple sclerosis death Source Type: blogs
Would You Consider the “Nuclear Option” as Your Multiple Sclerosis Treatment?
The very personal decision of which treatment to go on (if any) for multiple sclerosis comes down to rations; Cost-to-Benefit, Risk-to- Benefit, Quality of life-to-Benefit. It all depends on what “place” we are in our course of MS as to how far we may be willing to go with treatment.
For those who are fighting an aggressive and ever-progressing form of MS, new information is begging to “leak” out may give hope, but the “risk” part of the equation may be high.
We’ve reported on autologous stem cell treatment before. This procedure may be better known as a bone marrow-transplant, but a patient’s own bone mar...
Source: Life with MS - April 3, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS treatment multiple sclerosis treatment stem cell treatment Source Type: blogs
Multiple Sclerosis, You Bastard! Fuzzy Tongue Disorder
Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system which randomly attacks areas of the brain and spinal cord. These “random” assaults sometimes feel more like well-calculated, strategic raids intended to cause maximum emotional impact.
As many of you know, I was classically trained as a chef. Food was and still (to a lesser extent) is very much an important part of my life. Thought things take me significantly longer to plan and prepare, though my ancillary skills (such as my abilities with a knife or to stand at the range) are compromised, even though I cannot financially afford the ingredients I once lavi...
Source: Life with MS - April 2, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS symptoms central nervous system multiple sclerosis symptoms Source Type: blogs
New (to MS) Drug Approved for Multiple Sclerosis: The Price of Recycling
Good news for multiple sclerosis patients this week as the 10th disease modifying medication for MS (and the 3rd oral drug) was approved by the FDA. It’s not a new drug as a form of the medication has been approved for treatment of some types of psoriasis for nearly two decades. For a while it wasn’t even a drug – it was used an anti-mold treatment for sofas and shoes before its use was discontinued due to skin irritations. This week, however, Tecfidera (the drug many of us have known as “BG-12” during the testing phases) was approved and its maker, Biogen, intends to release the drug “within days”.
First bl...
Source: Life with MS - March 29, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS treatment drug approval treatment cost Source Type: blogs
The Creeping MS Symptoms
I knew a guy with MS whose symptoms started with a slight tingling at the end of his index finger. That tingling turned to numbness and it crept right up the musician’s finger, hand and up his arm. When I last saw this lad, his arm was all but useless to him. Multiple Sclerosis doesn’t always (or even often, to my knowledge) work that way, but I’ve had a new and creeping symptom this week so I thought I’d share.
A few days ago I took our dog Sadie out into the back garden for a pee. It was a bright, if cold, day and I enjoyed the feeling of the sun on my face as herself searched for just the right spot to empty. B...
Source: Life with MS - March 27, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS symptoms multiple sclerosis symptoms numbness tingling sensation Source Type: blogs
Secondary (and Tertiary) Effects of Multiple Sclerosis
Living with multiple sclerosis doesn’t just mean living with MS, living with its symptoms and with the side-effects of disease modifying drugs; living with MS also means coping with the things that happen to our bodies because of MS.
I mentioned my musculoskeletal complaints in our last “How’s your MS Today?” blog. These have been caused by poor gait caused by the way MS has weakened my left leg. It might also be partly caused by the right hip replacement (due to steroid treatment for MS), but MS defiantly has a hand in it. I throw my leg out, use my hip to lift the leg and I’m sure the days I try to get away wi...
Source: Life with MS - March 25, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS symptoms secondary multiple sclerosis symptoms Source Type: blogs
More Studies Have Scientists Warning Against CCSVI as “Treatment” for Multiple Sclerosis
Most of our long-time readers will know that I base my personal decisions about treatments on science. Many of you will know me as a “hopeful skeptic”. Some of you will remember the fury our blog community endured over the topic CCSVI in previous years. The last few days have seen studies which are drawing serious doubt to both the condition and its treatment.
Last autumn, Italian researchers released their findings which included the bold statement, “CCSVI is not a disease connected to multiple sclerosis.” Read their statement, and it continued, “there is no need [in clinical practice] to carry out additional t...
Source: Life with MS - March 22, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: CCSVI MS treatment multiple sclerosis studies Source Type: blogs
Nearly the End of the First Quarter, 2013: How’s Your MS Today?
Every month we let you chime in with how your symptoms, your disease progression, maybe even your new diagnosis are acting. We usually aim for the second week of the month, but being that last week was MS Awareness week and taken up by our MS History Lesson series we’re a touch late.
Not like it’s the first time something MS has gotten in the way of a schedule!
Let us know, check-in with yourself, or jot a note that you can take to your next doctor appointment. Read everyone’s comments, reconnect with an on-line friend, maybe just take a moment and reflect to yourself. This space is all about what you need it to be....
Source: Life with MS - March 20, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: How's your MS today MS symptoms Source Type: blogs
MS Awareness Week Wrap-up: Great Minds Gather
Summing up the past 50 years of MS history – with so many of our readers having lived a goodly portion of that half century with symptoms of (if not diagnosis with) multiple sclerosis – may be unnecessary at most but is daunting in its very mass; at least. These past five decades have seen so much change and so many advancements that I find it difficult to tease-out the highlights.
To cull the approval of drug therapy, advancement in patient-centered social networking and multi-media awareness campaigns is surely a perplexity. If, however, this blog is to fit into our standard space I must choose the advent of just on...
Source: Life with MS - March 15, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: multiple sclerosis awareness week drug therapy ms history Source Type: blogs
Irish Government Moves Assistance for Disabled Back Decades
A bombshell decision to cut transport funding for the disabled of Ireland, under two separate programs, will effectively institutionalize hundreds of people with multiple sclerosis.
In an amateurish political move the likes of which I haven’t seen since my days of high school student council, the government announced the sudden end to a needs-tested grant for mobility and transport. I’ll explain my assessment of the decision as “amateurish” in a moment, but first the damage.
The Mobility Allowance is a small stipend (just over 200 Euro per month) given to people who are unable to work or walk (wheelchair-bound) or...
Source: Life with MS - March 1, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS Politics healthcare disabled health care Ireland Source Type: blogs
MS Inc.: The Myth About Multiple Sclerosis and Mercury
Mention of one of the original scams in a recent comment brought the topic, flooding with unexpected emotion, to me this week. I’ve touched on this subject before under the heading of MS Quackery and it’s time it was put to bed.
Mercury poisoning was first “linked” to multiple sclerosis in the surrounds of Minamata Bay, Japan in the 1950’s. To be fair, looking at the symptoms of this massive episode which now takes on the name of the bay – Minamata Disease, you can see why one might think of MS:
Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision ...
Source: Life with MS - February 27, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: myths about ms mercury and ms myths about multiple sclerosis Source Type: blogs
Light Sensitivity and Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple Sclerosis and bright light may not mix. A rare bright and sunny day here on the edge of Europe and I’m just now realizing that the place I’ve chosen to place my desk looks directly into the afternoon sun. It brought to mind several warning labels on meds I once took which indicated “sun sensitivity” or “light sensitivity”.
A quick search around the web found several medications which I still have in the medicine locker that no longer carry said warning labels. I had to wonder if it was just my pharmacy that was no longer listing this side-effect (though I know which I have to take with food or milk, w...
Source: Life with MS - February 25, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS symptoms light sensitivity sunlight sensitivity Source Type: blogs
The Smell of Multiple Sclerosis
Some people with multiple sclerosis smell. Some people with MS smell funny and others with MS don’t smell at all. With last week’s declaration that people living with multiple sclerosis were “crazy”, you might think this blog is to be some kind of an odiferous admonition. On the contrary; when I say that some people with MS “smell funny” or “don’t smell” I’m speaking of the ability to sense smells properly. The loss of smell or inability to smell properly is called anosmia.
We know that MS can adversely affect the sense of taste and vision, hearing and all of the rest. It only makes sense that the sens...
Source: Life with MS - February 22, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS symptoms senses and ms smell and ms Source Type: blogs
