There are many things that a person can do in their daily life to improve their health living with multiple sclerosis or any other chronic condition.
I always liked to say that there are a part medicine plays and there was a part that the patient plays and so the part that you can play in empowering yourself is number one, making sure that you are understanding your treatments, why you’re taking them and what they are supposed to do.
I think the other important thing that you can do or someone who lives with MS can do is to listen to their body because if you’re having new symptoms or changes in your function, you need to inform somebody so that your healthcare provider can know if they need to adjust your treatment or potentially change your medicines.
We cannot fix or help symptoms if we don’t know what they’re going on and I’ve unfortunately had many people that have come to the office and said, “Dr. Williams, I had this episode a couple of months ago” and I’m like, well, why didn’t you call? Because maybe that’s an indication we need to change treatment and maybe that’s some disability that we could’ve avoided if we had attacked that symptom or that episode earlier.
Other things that people can do are to eat right and exercise the same things that your mom, your grandma told you, right? Everyone asked if there’s a particular diet that helps multiple sclerosis and there’s a lot of research that needs to be done in terms of diet and exercise, not only in our field but in many fields of medicine. But a healthy well-balanced diet, whatever that looks like for you. More Greens, right? I usually say that when we’re putting it in our mouth, 9 times out of 10 we know if we should be eating it or not. And so eating more healthy raw foods will certainly help improve someone’s overall health with a chronic condition such as multiple sclerosis and building in some exercise.
And sometimes we have to reframe our thoughts of exercise. So especially for my patients who may have difficulty with disability walking, or they may have fatigue, which is a very common symptom of MS. Exercise does not always mean