| What is Multiple sclerosis |

| Links to great MS sites |
| Since Being diagnosed, I have joined and started many Support Groups Online. I have talked to many other people diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. What We Need You To Know After someone is diagnosed they go through many phases of emotions. It's like going through a grieving process There can be five stages of grief). These reactions might not occur in a specific order, and can (at times) occur together. Not everyone experiences all of these emotions: - Denial, disbelief, numbness - Anger, blaming others - Bargaining (for instance "If I am cured of this cancer, I will never smoke again.") - Depressed mood, sadness, and crying - Acceptance, coming to terms (copied from MedlinePlus.com) It is important to understand that these processes can take many months. When symptoms slow down the grieving usually goes away but every time we flare up the grieving process starts all over. The importance of understanding this is because usually when the grieving is going on we tend to pull away from "people". When a Flare up or exacerbation is happening it takes everything out of us and the little bit of strength we have left needs to be put into focusing on getting through it. Most of the people I have talked to in the support groups have said that one of the saddest things they have gone through since being diagnosed is the loss of family and friends. This is usually due to not understanding what MS is and what it does. At the same time due to the symptoms we have, we can not do all the same things we used to do. Or at least maybe not at the same capacity. We need everyone in our lives to understand what MS is. It is hard enough having this disease but not having people who support us and understand us makes life even worse and even harder to deal with. |
| Multiple Sclerosis has a lot of "INVISIBLE SYMPTOMS" The problem with that is it is very hard for other's to see what all we are going through. Due to those "Invisible Symptoms" we tend to be treated like there isn't anything wrong with us. The best things you can do to support someone with Multiple Sclerosis is: -Learn about the symptoms -Don't criticize and put us down - Know that stress makes symptoms worse -Be supportive -Understand that WE try to do as much as we can. We are not being lazy!! - It takes time sometimes years for the Doctors to get the medications right so that we can start having good days. It will happen!! - Know that there is NO cure for MS - Understand that the medications we take are only to try to help with some of the symptoms -Understand that the shots we take are the only MS medication that specifically helps but does not treat the symptoms only the damage that is being done to us so it hopefully won't become permanent damage. And most of all... Try to imagine living day to day not knowing what symptoms you will wake up to and how long they will last. |