Have any of you seen the video of a lady called jo on the nhs website who I think has had ms for 5 years. She’s talking about rrms and being on dmd but how steroids never cleared up relapses for her. She looks quite badly affected. As a undiagnosed person or a newly diagnosed person it’s quite scary watching that video. Would you say she is quite badly affected or would you say that it’s a very lifelike image of ms?
No, I haven’t but as a fairly newly diagnosed person, I’ve got to be honest and say that I would probably rather not. I think MS is so variable across individuals that I would rather just take what comes instead if fearing for the future. That might sound unrealistic and possibly cowardly…but what I wake up with is what I have to face that day !!
A single person with MS cannot be typical of MS because there’s no such thing. The severity of MS varies from almost completely unaffected (to the extent that they themselves don’t know they have it) to very badly affected and disabled within a few years. The latter is far rarer than the former. There are also loads of new DMDs in the pipeline so new and future MSers have a much more positive future than those previously diagnosed. (And I include people with PPMS in that too.) When someone has MS, other people’s MS is irrelevant. We can learn from others, but what happens, what works, what doesn’t work and how we are is unique to us. Karen x