Category Archives: Symptoms and Treatment

Sep 25 2017
6 Comments
Symptoms and Treatment

Expert By Experience

speechI’m ever so slightly nervous.

I’ve been invited to speak at a neurological conference, about my experience of MS treatment: in my case, Lemtrada.

I’m nervous on two counts:

  • I’m not a hugely experienced public speaker
  • It’s taking place just outside Budapest, Hungary (and I’m going in two days, eeeek).

However, I am going and I will do my absolute best – it’s a topic I’m passionate about and if that means conquering my MS-travel-related-anxieties, then so be it.

I’ve written (and re-drafted) my speech and I think it comes from the heart. In it, I discuss my decision-making process in choosing the treatment I had and the benefits of it. And also the downsides.

It it empowering to have a voice and to discuss in public the importance of choice. Reflecting back over the last couple of decades of my life, my voice was somewhat quashed; whether through experiences or through people I allowed into my life, with all their notions about how I should act, what I couldn’t say. It’s kind of poetic irony that my first relapse affected my speech.

So MS may have taken away my speech with one hand but it gave me back an attitude – a desire to create change – with the other. Blogging has been a huge part of this – from meek beginnings, where I hid my identity for fear of ridicule or prejudicing the legal case against employers who sacked me for having MS, to my more strident posts, yet always trying to demonstrate a balance of how life actually is for a small family coping with MS.

However, finding a voice is also about listening to other voices, and the thousands of comments on my posts I’ve received over the years have proved that, over and over again. You guys have sanded off my sharp edges, picked me up when I’ve been down and virtually held my hand through Teenager crises.

And that’s why a large part of my speech is devoted to you, and the power of support. When I took The Teenager to Uni almost two weeks ago, I didn’t feel alone, even as a single parent. I really felt that you guys were there with me, every step of the way.

And it’s also why we are all ‘experts by experience’ – a phrase mentioned to me by a fellow blogger, Patrick. We both agree that the usual, ‘expert patient’ can still make us appear as passive recipients of care, whereas ‘experts by experience’ emboldens us, allowing us to stand up and say, ‘yes, amongst everyone here, the neurologists, the physiotherapists, the researchers, I’ve had the treatment and I am the expert too.’

So, listen to me?

It’s me who went through the lumbar puncture, the MRI’s, the blood tests, the initial steroids to ward off relapses, the actual treatment, administered in a drip. I’ve been completely floored and got back up again. The different tablets for weeks afterwards to ward off infection. The fatigue, the weakness, the all-too-quick-recovery back into work before time.

We’re symbiotic – the health care professionals and us, the patients.

We work together?

Tagged , , , , , ,
Sep 16 2017
14 Comments
Symptoms and Treatment

Don’t Believe The Hype

lifeI was wandering around the supermarket yesterday and accidentally went down the Baby aisle.

With the last 18 years of bringing up The Teenager fresh in my mind since taking him to Uni, I felt a bit of a pang.

I gazed upon the rows of feeding cups, teeny tiny outfits, creams, ointments and the inevitable ‘How-To’ books.

Someone once said to me, when I was heavily pregnant and reaching for my second ice cream sundae, that babies don’t come with an instruction manual; probably the best piece of advice I’ve ever had.

In a way, having a child and being diagnosed with MS are weirdly similar, and having been through both (and survived to tell the tale), I can quite confidently say, ‘MS does not come with an instruction manual.’

In the beginning, I thought it did. Similar to being pregnant, when I was diagnosed, I was bombarded with stories (both good and bad), told to do this, told to do that, take this supplement, eat this raw bark by the light of a full moon. I read endless articles online, mostly grim, and I envisaged a similar future. The few positive stories involved wildly expensive treatment and/or jumping out of a plane for charity.

When I had The Teenager, I constantly referenced books, other people, forums, random strangers – ‘why won’t my baby stop crying?’ Whilst the deluge of advice was welcomed, it wasn’t helpful. Just like MS, every baby is unique. What worked for me (draping my baby over my arm and rocking him in tune to The Verve, a completely accidental occurrence), didn’t work for others. We found our own groove through trial and error.

MS has a virtual cornucopia of symptoms and none of us are the same, just like those tiny week-old humans. You can read as much advice as you can, you can pin your hopes on a miracle cure, just like I did to cure The Teenager’s colic. Nothing worked until I found my own solution to our own unique problem.

Being diagnosed is about finding out what works for you. Your symptoms will nudge your life in different ways, to cope with various symptoms, be it fatigue, cog fog, mobility and all the rest. When you seek advice, take what you need from it and discard the rest. It’s your life and your life with MS is not the same as anyone else’s.

I’ve found my MS groove, just as I found my Baby groove. I don’t drape myself over anyone’s arm, but I’ve re-calibrated certain aspects of my life which work for me, but which I would never foist upon anyone else.

I know when to sleep, when to do paperwork, when to shop, when to go to work. I know when to be extra careful going up or down stairs and I now know how to cope with dark days. All this works for me, but probably won’t for you.

Examine your MS and find out how to play it. It’ll take time, trial and error and blind alleys.

But you will find it.

Tagged , , , ,
Sep 08 2017
10 Comments
Symptoms and Treatment

Being Ill – Not For The Faint-Hearted

fabWhat’s it this time?

A relapse? An ‘exacerbation of symptoms’? Or just the usual?

Whatever your MS nurse, neurologist or doctor calls it, you feel pretty bad.

Worse than that, you feel dreadful. Terrible. Horrible. And everything else in between.

But wait, your colleagues and friends will make you feel better:

‘Wish I was you, would love a week off work, dossing around, watching telly.’

‘A week in bed? You serious? Eaaaaasy life.’

Yeah. When you’re in fairly good health, a week off must sound like bliss. When you’re truly ill, it’s evil, and no doubt you’re wishing you’re well enough to be in work as anything is preferable to how awful you’re feeling right now.

What most people don’t realise is, being ill is extremely hard work. It’s certainly not a cushy number; my last relapse showed this only too well. I was ill. All I could do was lie on the sofa. Nice? No. The nerve pain gnawed away at my legs while the fatigue bashed my head in. Everything hurt. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t concentrate. All I could do was … lie there. Being ill.

And all the while, rushing through my head was a stream of things I couldn’t do, but had to – the laundry, the cleaning, the shopping and cooking a basic meal for myself. The latter tortured me. I could taste the boiled egg, but it took me over three hours to get up up and do it (I have one of those six-egg electric egg boilers – couldn’t find the energy to turn it on).

To be frank, I can be as guilty as the next person. I never really understood people who had the flu, until the one and only time I had it, two years ago. I literally, quite literally, could not get out of bed. It was a relapse x 10. And extremely frightening, especially as I was the only responsible adult in the house. In some ways, the mental anguish was worse than the aching limbs and complete inability to sit upright.

Someone once said to me, quite soon after my diagnosis, that you have to be strong to cope with MS, and, boy, they weren’t wrong. If you let it, it can become a full time job. Constant pain, constant fatigue, immeasurable fear of what happens next. Plus, there’s no end-point.

You know that chic trend for ‘pop-up’ this, that and the other? Shops, stalls, cafes? For me, MS is a bit like that, except not as nice. They appear one day and are gone the week after, having cashed in their pain tokens and left.

And even when you’re Not Very Ill, there’s the constant undercurrent of symptoms, most of them invisible. Going to a Port-a-Loo six times a day when there’s eight men on a site isn’t pleasant. However, lying down on a pile of plasterboard and nodding off is, so perhaps I now look for the silver lining.

I find it bizarre, at my age, that I’m coping with an endless barrage of symptoms, day in, day out, and have been doing for the last six years. I should be thinking of other things now that The Teenager is off to Uni next week – taking up Salsa (lol), learning how to make sushi, immersing myself in Yoga for Complete and Utter Beginners.

Next time someone says how cushy it is to be ill, take my advice.

Ignore them.

Tagged , , , ,
Jul 23 2017
4 Comments
Symptoms and Treatment

Brain Training

brainI recently had a fascinating conversation with Dr. Henry Mahnke, CEO of  Posit Science regarding one of my biggest bugbears, MS cognitive problems. 

Could it be possible to train our brains and reduce cognitive symptoms? Read on …

A recent study showed that a specific kind of computerized brain training could be helpful to MS patients.

Impairment of various cognitive functions is reported to affect up to 70 percent of people with MS.

Deficits in speed of processing are considered a signature cognitive symptom of MS. Currently, there is no generally recommended method of treatment.

The study was conducted by researchers at the NYU Langone Medical Center’s MS Comprehensive Care Unit.

They enrolled 135 patients at Stony Brook Medicine, who were randomly assigned to either a brain-exercise intervention group or a computer-games active comparison group.

Both groups were asked to train an hour a day, five days a week, for 12 weeks (a total of 60 hours). Researchers reported high compliance in both groups (games group averaged 57 hours and brain-training group averaged 38).

Both groups improved on the overall cognitive measure. However, despite training about one-third fewer hours, the brain-training group did significantly better than the games group, with nearly three times the gain. The brain-training group had about a 29 percent gain on the cognitive measure.

In addition to the objective neuropsychological battery, patients were asked, as a secondary measure, to self-assess their experience of improvement in cognition. Nearly 57 percent of the brain-training group reported experiencing improvement, as compared to 31 percent in the games group.

The brain exercises used in the study are part of the commercially-available BrainHQ platform and app.

Unlike traditional strategy-based cognitive remediation, BrainHQ is designed to harness the brain’s plasticity – its ability to change chemically, structurally and functionally in response to sensory and other inputs. Most BrainHQ exercises progressively challenge attention and speed of processing, as foundational building blocks of higher brain function (e,g., memory, planning, reasoning).

In fact, the researchers selected BrainHQ for the study because it emphasizes speed of processing.

An additional purpose of the study was to determine if low-cost, self-administered training can work.

“This trial demonstrates that computer-based cognitive remediation accessed from home can be effective in improving cognitive symptoms for individuals with MS,” said Dr. Leigh Charvet, the study’s lead author.

The study was published in PLOS ONE Neurology. It is believed to be the largest study among MS patients to date, measuring impact of brain training on cognition.

Dr. Henry Mahncke, who leads the BrainHQ team, said these results contribute to plans to bring digital therapies targeting specific indications to market, after obtaining appropriate regulatory approvals.

Tagged , , , ,
Jul 19 2017
2 Comments
Symptoms and Treatment

All Clear On The Campath Front

all clearIf you’ve had a relapse, such as my epic one earlier this year, you almost want it to prove itself.

Mind you, that proof would take the form of lesions on the brain, which is definitely not a good thing.

So I was torn when I had my last MRI. Having just re-entered the real world after being locked in an abysmal cycle of worsening symptoms for over five months, I was enjoying my freedom.

The thought of having to factor in another course of Campath in amongst getting The Teenager University-ready was something my brain just couldn’t compute.

On the other hand, if the scan showed up nothing, what on earth was going on? Is this it? Can I expect more of these epic MS smacks-around-the-face? Would this be my life from now on?

Anyway, the excellent news is, my scan is clear, and that is all that matters. No disease progression. No need for further treatment at this stage. My brain is just fine.

After saying, ‘thank you, thank you, OMG, thank you’ over and over again to my MS nurse who imparted this wondrous news, I then asked, ‘erm, so what do I do now?’

Well, nothing. It’s a kind of waiting game. The relapses I’m experiencing are normal for my type of MS. And there you have it, MS in a nutshell. You just don’t know. You’ll never know, from one day to the next, how it’s going to hit you. Every day is a lucky-dip.

Take this week. On Monday, I was awake. Fully awake. No yawns, not much pain, minimal brain fog. Apart from the usual twinges and walking in to walls, I was fine. On Tuesday, the nerves in my legs were on fire. I fell asleep after work and my hands went numb with alarming frequency. I tripped over in the kitchen, scattering chopped rosemary all over the floor (can’t blame the cat this time).

I’m beyond relieved I don’t need treatment this year; every day I wake up and it’s like remembering the glorious news all over again. The absolute relief is immense. Yet the fear hasn’t receded.

But hey, this is life. As The Teenager quoted to me earlier from John Lennon, as we were waiting for him to have his meningitis jab, ‘Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end’.

Tagged , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →