Are you feeling not right lately? Have you been experiencing blurred vision; constipation; diarrhea; dizziness; drowsiness; dry eyes, nose, skin, or mouth; headache; indigestion; nausea; stomach pain; taste changes or trouble sleeping. How about difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue; confusion; difficult or painful urination; fast or irregular heartbeat; fever; hallucinations; mental or mood changes (eg, agitation); seizures; swelling of the hands, ankles, or feet; vision problems?*



If you answered yes to any or all of these, you might be experiencing the symptoms of symptom management. Don’t worry, while you can’t necessarily be cured of the MS symptoms that ail you, or the side effects that plague you, you might feel better when you read the stories of another individual, who just like you is symptomatic while she tries to manage the symptoms she must live with every single day. At times it’s grueling; but read on, you may, or may not, experience the joy found in common ground.


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When you have MS, the label alone is hard to cope with; the uncertain future, the list of possibilities, the treatment decisions. It’s a constant emotional, intellectual tornado. How any of us can think clearly while juggling these realities continues to blow my mind. But let’s just say you have managed to negotiate those realities. You now have to deal with the symptoms that don’t respond to your injectable med.** The disease modifying drugs slow the progression of MS, yet often don’t help with little things, like say, bladder control. And bear with me for a minute, but that is just wrong!  Considering these meds need to break skin with every dose, you would think they would address more than the future! I mean c’mon!

I was diagnosed in 1988 when there weren’t any disease modifying treatments and therefore little to feel hopeful about. The only drugs available at that time were those used for symptom management, and they seemed like a shot in the dark – a guessing game as to whether or not they would work. So, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

Most everyone can recite the side effects of drug therapies in the order that those ridiculous commercial rattle them off. And while Pharma is required by law to list any and all possibile side effects associated with taking their drug, the list is full of examples that fuel anxiety and make it that much harder to make this important decision. Trying to weigh the potential benefits of these meds against the possible side effects they might cause, opens a Pandora’s box of tradeoffs.  And we have to keep in mind that the side effects may not even occur, or last long. To further complicate matters, it may take a while to determine if the Rx works at all. Quite frankly, it’s hard to keep positive about any particular approach when the what-ifs illustrate the worst-case scenario - inducing nightmares that have a voice over of legally required disclaimers.