What is
Multiple sclerosis
Links to great MS
sites
Links for children to
understand MS
When Someone you know
is diagnosed with Multiple
Sclerosis, these links have
Great Information that You
should know. So that you
can understand what we
deal with everyday. The
more you know the more
you can understand and be
more supportive.
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.
"When we say we can't do
Something"
A GREAT way to understand
our symptoms
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.