I thought before I go further into discussing the nature and effects of living with Multiple Sclerosis, I must make clear the point of it not being something that is a normal daily thing that everybody goes through. Which can be very condesending and even hurtful to people with MS.
I recall when I finished college, I had suffered another relapse when I had gone on to a different level of study, after which I was advised to 'step up' a level in terms of treatment and take medication which pretty much is the chemotheraphy of MS. At the time I was attending appointments in different fields of medicine (from physiotherapy, psychology, neurologists to more frequent visists to my GP), the cream of the crop being a week in which I had more appointments than the amount of days in the week! I saw an old family friend who asked what I did in my life, to which my response was 'home to hospital and home to hospital' and his response being; 'yeah, I've been there done that and have got the t-shirt' because he had suffered from a trapped nerve. That being the most severe case if anything at the time.
Be it an attempt of sympathy or even one of comfort, the one thing that gets many MSERS boiling is the person who claims to understand the predicament when they have no idea the difference between a brain and a limb. Take for a more common example fatigue, something which is a symptom the majority of MSERS suffer from daily and therefore attend clinics and classes on how to try and overcome the barriers it causes only for a random person to say 'we all get really tired sometimes, we just have to deal with it'. Now most of us would think excuse me you don't really have a problem waking up in the morning and getting to the breakfast table safely and even further you don't have to live knowing and seeing your body pretty much crippling away!
To put things in context; a person living with MS generally would require three ( or even much more!) times the amount of energy and effort a healthy person would need to do the simplest of things in life. Although people may have a few aches and pains now and then, maybe not understand something when they are shown it or even get lost in a new shopping centre, but when that is something that you live with everyday and go through numerous tests and doctors to try and understand a possible root cause, it really isn't something which a 'healthy' person may understand in a literal sense as most people with Multiple Sclerosis have pretty much forgotten the true definition of being 'normal' or 'healthy'. It really takes effort to just be awake!
Just to finish off with something I've heard many people with MS say when this may be a topic of discussion, that we have numerous MRI scan folders and files that show our damage so a broken leg or a headache due to missing out the mornings caffeine fix is really not the same as having legs which are pretty much plastic due to damaged or even dead nerves or pain like a boxing camp inside your own body! Words are cheap to those who are in the stands and these comments generally seems to be from people who like to talk more than they listen which can do more harm than good and as the symptoms of MS vary so much it is a vital point and a need of realisation that there is a huge difference when we are in the world of neurology. Just like there is a difference between a paracetamol and morphine, there is also a huge difference between the normal bumps in life and the almost constant earthquakes that people with MS or any other abnormal health condition experience very often!
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