MS Awareness Month

March is MS Awareness Month


Generally, like with all illnesses, you can live blissfully unaware of cancer, diabetes, or even MS until you or someone you know gets the news of a diagnosis.  It was just over a year ago when my fears of having MS were officially confirmed.  As I may have mentioned before my Dr was pretty sure I had MS over a year before I was diagnosed.  By the time I was officially diagnosed I was just glad to finally know what was going on after several years of increasingly worrisome symptoms.

So, for those of you just joining the blog, or who don't really understand what MS is, I will give you a quick synopsis.  MS is where the body's immune system attacks the nervous system and does damage to the protective coating on the nerves.  MS manifests in a lot of different ways so it can be difficult to diagnosis.  Common symptoms that can occur to trigger a diagnosis include: rapid vision impairment, numbness and tingling in extremities, periods of unexplained dizziness, and rapid mobility impairment to name a few. There is no cure however my neurologist tells me there has never been a better time to have MS.  There are over a dozen drug therapies that can slow the disease progressing and there is A Lot of research being done especially on the progressive side of MS.  I am grateful for both of these things because it gives me hope.

I still have symptoms but as far as I can tell they aren't getting worse.  I am really not getting any new issues outside of strange cold sensations in my hands (however it is winter in Iowa so it is possible it is just cold!)  A MS group is now meeting at my public library once a month so I have a great new community of MS survivors to learn with and share stories.  I look forward to getting to know them and their families better.  I continue to follow all the latest research studies that come out and study any new meds that get approvals.  I do the best to be kind to myself when I have a rough drug reaction or am not able to keep up with the activities I want to participate in.

All in all life with MS is good.  Stay tuned for my next post about my training recap from 2014 and my plans for 2015 as I continue to beat MS.

In the meantime if you want to learn more about MS or support MS research you can check out these links.  The first two are the major research and support organizations for people learning about MS.

More about MS and MS symptoms
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/Symptoms-Diagnosis

Multiple Sclerosis Association of America - they track a lot of the news coverage and research.
http://www.mymsaa.org/

Great source for current research and drug information

http://multiplesclerosisnewstoday.com/