When you are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, your entire world seems to change. You are scared about what your future will hold, how you will handle the disease so that your lifestyle doesn?t change drastically and how you will be able to cope with the disease without breaking down.
MS or Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease which largely affects the brain and central nervous system, including the spinal cord. Multiple sclerosis affects twice as many women as men. More often than not, the disease will be diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, and has the potency to change your life forever. As you lose the proper functioning of limbs, face vision and balance problems and have difficulties with your bowels, life will seem to be painful. But having said that, it is possible to still have hope and live a good life with MS. Let us find out what you need to remember as a patient of multiple sclerosis, how you can have a socially and even intellectually stimulating life despite the disease, and how you can cope with it with the help of good doctors and family support.
5??Things You Need To Remember As A Patient Of Multiple Sclerosis
1. MS will change your life.
Fatigue and muscle weakness will make you more dependent on others, as you will not be able to fully function without aid. Even everyday functions like bathing and a walk to the balcony might need help. Talk to your doctor and family at length, and find out what medications and equipments can make your life more independent.
2. Stay consistent with your medication and therapies.
It has been seen that MS relapses without any warning, and to avoid that you need to do everything your neurologist tells you. Get a calendar and pill box so that you don?t miss on any medication.
3. Eat well and keep up your strength.
As your muscles weaken, exercises prescribed by your doctor will help you stay stronger and motivate you to move forward despite the disease. Don?t make MS an excuse for leading a reclusive, sedentary lifestyle. That will only pose other medical risks in the long run.
?4. Consider therapy and counseling.
There are millions of individuals who live well with MS ? all you need to do is reach out and support will be available from those who fully understand what you are going through.
?5. A tough decision will be to change your life plans.
MS strikes in the 20s and 30s when people are busy planning for a great future. Don?t give up on your future; simply decide on a more practical path considering your limitations which are brought by MS. You might need to consider learning other skills, choose a different profession and change your lifestyle, but that doesn?t mean your life is over because your flourishing career is over.
How To Stay Socially Healthy With Multiple Sclerosis?
Living a life with MS means that you will be physically challenged to do things by yourself day after day, and will often struggle and cry out in despair. But that doesn?t mean that you lead a socially reclusive life. The definition of a socially healthy life is one where an individual is adept at getting along with others, can handle the way others will react to him or her, and is capable of being in control when he or she interacts with societal mores and social institutions. In fact, research has shown that those who are socially involved with other people and communities recover faster from illnesses and take disabilities in their stride.
Stay Connected!
There will be days when you resent the people who email you to ask of your well-being, call you five times a day to see if you need help to get by and will show up at your doorstep to cheer you up. You will find that if you can muster the courage to attend that birthday party you have been dreading for weeks, you will actually enjoy yourself.
What really helps is to stay connected to other patients who have MS and find out how they deal with situations they feel are too stressful. These people, your social network of other friends who really understand what you are going through, will help you cross any hurdle in life and celebrate with you as you achieve smaller things in life which come naturally to those who don?t have MS.
Try These 5 Things To Feel Better
- Read a book to your child in bed
- Go out with your husband/wife and see an ailing family member you have been avoiding
- Visit a mall or go for a movie as a family
- Help out at a local shelter and talk to homeless people or those who have been dealt a hard blow in life, and help them by proving that even though your life isn?t exactly a rosy picture, you still manage to cope
- Find an online group of people suffering from MS and stay in touch
In the end, it is absolutely acceptable that there will be days you don?t feel social, when you are in pain or even unable to shower. There will also be days you have cognitive dysfunction and holding a conversation is a tough task. But on the days that you feel like yourself, make sure you see life from many different angles and try and socialise as much as your health allows you to.
You Can Stay Intellectually Healthy with Multiple Sclerosis
Intellectual health goes beyond fighting cognitive dysfunction. Short term memory loss, inability to talk or communicate and inability to understand or grasp words will come with the territory when you are a MS patient. But that shouldn?t stop you from cultivating a broad interest in the many things in life that you enjoy.
Intellectual health has nothing to do with talking to people; it has more to do with being able to have fluid thought processes that evoke emotions and conjure up mental pictures, which make your life more stimulating. ?Use it or Lose it? is a phrase that best describes intellectual health. If, as an MS patient, you give in, your brain and central nervous system will further deteriorate.
To keep your brain stimulated and to feel more intellectual, try these tips.
- Read a book or join a book club for those who have MS
- Listen to a musical
- Take a class to learn a foreign language
- Learn to start a blog, which keeps you mentally and physically engaged for a few hours every day
- Pick an issue that interests you. Be it the deteriorating condition of the environment, educating a girl child or saving animals against inhumane experiments, pick a cause you believe in and research it online to stay motivated and engaged
Set small goals for yourself ? like you will spend 30 minutes a day, four days a week to stay intellectually stimulated. Not only will it give you a sense of achievement, it will also help your brain stay sharper and more alert, helping you on days your thoughts are muddled.
As with any illness that comes with some kind of disability, multiple sclerosis will also make you have good and bad days. The key here is to make the good days count so much, accomplish so many small goals and enjoy each moment so much that the bad days seem to pass quicker.
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