living with ms

Living with MS: how do you just “Live with Multiple Sclerosis”?

I don’t know about you, but I have been having some days, more recently, where I have really been struggling with having more problems with the bad days because of the symptoms of ms -- where I feel so horrible that it has been much more difficult for me to be even be able to get out of bed (it took me 90 minutes after I first woke up just for me to be able to get out of bed the other day). It hasn't been this bad for a while, but sometimes the really bad days just come and go whenever.

What do you do, when it’s just “One of those days with Multiple Sclerosis”? What do you do on the bad days for you to just to be able to function some?

You know what I mean…when you are battling with the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis and you are having “one of those days” -- where it seems like your body is fighting against you instead of working with you, how does this make you feel and what do you do about it?

The effects of Multiple Sclerosis can be mild to severe. Whether you have a mild, medium or severe case of Multiple Sclerosis, it can still be difficult dealing with the symptoms of MS because it can reduce how well you can function each day.

Well, for me, I first all allow myself to at least become a little conscious. Getting out of bed can be a challenge for me on the tougher or really "bad" days, since the more I feel overwhelmingly exhausted and the sicker I feel, the less my body, and in particular my legs, want to function at all.

On the really bad days, I can’t get out of bed until the nerves in my knees, hips and legs decide to work, because my legs become like wet noodles and they will not support the weight of my body. If I try to get out of bed and the nerves in my legs are not working like they should be working, I’ll end up on the floor. Dragging myself off of the floor is such a tremendous effort for me, that it just adds to how much I already feel the ms fatigue and exhaustion, but I haven't had this type of situation occur for quite a while, at this point.

Multiple Sclerosis fatigue can also add to the problem of not functioning if the fatigue becomes so overwhelming that it makes it difficult to be able to do much of anything on the more extreme days (or possibly even a few weeks). After I finally am able to get out of bed without hurting myself, I do a few things for me to feel more functional and so that I also connect better with my surroundings.

What I have found that usually helps is to make sure that I drink water after I first wake up, since this helps my body to cool down some. I find that sometimes I may be partially dehydrated from being overheated when I first wake up or from not drinking enough water the day before, but there is also the problems that I tend to have problems from the effect of Multiple Sclerosis heat on making my nerves function much less. Heat tends to make my nerves short-circuit and function much less.

I find that if I take extra vitamin C during the day, this helps keep my nerves from over reacting to heat as much by helping to boost Multiple Sclerosis immunity, if I feel sick, since I may be getting an infection of some kind and I don’t know it.

Eating healthy food also helps with reducing the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. Sometimes when I am not feeling well, I don’t feel like eating, but avoiding eating is not a good idea at this point. Eating helps to give the body nutrients that can help to refuel the body and give the body more energy and stamina to reduce MS fatigue.

After I do eat something, I also take vitamin D, in larger quantities, since I tend to be low in vitamin D. Vitamin D is natural produced in the skin, as a reaction to sunlight shining on our skin during the day. When our vitamin D levels become too low, this also makes our immune system weaker, making it more difficult for our bodies to fight off infections. I find that when I take Vitamin D Multiple Sclerosis symptoms are reduced much more. I typically take 6,000 to 7,000 iu of vitamin D daily. Vitamin D is amazing what it can help to do for our bodies. Taking vitamin D helps to boost the immune system and helps to reduce problems with depression, which can also add to the large amount of fatigue, which is already a problem for most of us with Multiple Sclerosis.

Eating more often can help reduce MS symptoms. Reducing how stressed I find that after eating food and taking vitamins that this helps me to function better some. Playing music can help also to put me in a better mood and to make my day seem much easier to take. Things don’t seem so difficult to handle after I play music because it can help put me in a more positive state of mind and help reduce my stress levels.

Living with MS, when it's just "one of those days", I find that rather than making myself miserable about the fact that I'm having a much worse day because of the effects of Multiple Sclerosis on my body, that I am better off doing what I can do for reducing my symptoms of MS and allowing myself to rest and recover. This is sometimes the best thing that I can do, to allow my body to recover faster.

After all, beating myself up about the fact that I am "so sick again" just makes everything so much worse for me. After all -- what we focus our mind on usually makes a big difference in helping our bodies to recover whenever we have a relapse, at least to some degree.

Give yourself a break on the tougher days and do what you can do, instead of focusing on what you can't do for today. If we are kinder to our bodies and work with them, this will help our bodies to rest, replenish and recover sooner and help to reduce the possibility of a ms relapse or ms exacerbation from occurring.

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