This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

My name is Joe, and I was recently diagnosed with MS. I am a 25 year old grad student studying high-energy particle physics, and I love what I do so much. I am horrified at the thought that the cognitive decline associated with MS might prohibit me from doing what I love. I know it probably varies with every person, but I was wondering how debilitating it actually is. Please help me!

Joe,

Please don't stress out about it. Not everyone suffers with cognitive decline.

I was diagnosed in 84, didn't experience any symptoms until around 2000. After all this time, my main symptom is walking.

I don't know what your symptoms are now but I think you'll find this site very helpful. I, like many others on this site believe diet and exercise play a big part.

JL (jimmylegs) is an expert on nutrition and any necessary supplements needed to balance and optimize one's health.

Welcome to the TIMS.

M

Joe, it is true everyone is different; I believe you can find statistics on the percent of MSers with cog decline. I have been told that keeping your brain as active as possible is the best defense against decline.

Welcome to the forum!

welcome jw, you're right it's different for everyone.

i have had to deal with cognitive issues but then i detected and corrected my zinc deficiency and things cleared up.

you can do things like a niacin flush, or take ginkgo biloba, to increase blood flow through the brain and stay hydrated.

here's how debilitating my cognitive issues were. i was still getting up and going to work each day, and doing a good job, but i had a lot of trouble driving. i could not process how things were moving around me on the road. i would sit at a deserted 4-way stop and try to cross, unable to decide if something had appeared from one direction while i had glanced the other. it was really hard to drive on the highway and assess if it was okay to change lanes. i could never remember if i had locked the door, at home or when leaving the car. i easily lost track of conversations. if watching television, i could not remember what show i was watching when the ads were on.

no-one around me could tell. i was telling my mother about it all the other day and she had had no idea. and, when i was taking courses, i was still getting great marks (don't ask me how!).

i started being really dedicated with nutrition and everything cleared up. especially when i took ginkgo, i noticed that i never lost track of a conversation no matter how many times we digressed onto side topics. it was pretty sweet

just recently i noticed i was a little foggy on whether i had locked the door or not. i don't have a lot of money at the moment so i had run out of a few key supplements. i just had to stock up and get disciplined again and things are on the mend.

i spent 15 years depleting my body's nutrient stores, via being a strict strict vegan. i am only 5 years into building those stores back up, so i still have to eat very properly and supplement at therapeutic levels to stay on top of everything.

IMHO there are more than 4 categories of MS - it's not a real diagnosis it's a checklist of symptoms and signs, and it's up to patients as individuals to unravel our personal etiologies.

TIMS is a great support resource, welcome, and happy reading

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

Could you provide a `Master` List of all of the vitamins a PWMS should take along with the dosages and blood levels. I have followed you on TIMS for a long time but I find myself not always knowing all of the proper supplements, dosages and blood levels that we should have. Thank you again for doing so much research into this area. Sorry if I am asking you to repeat yourself all the time. Perhaps this could be posted at the start of the TIMS web site so that we all could use it as a referance guide.

Whoa... I am a recent vegan convert, following the recommendations from The China Study. I have fairly significant cog decline due to MS. Can you elaborate a bit on how your veganism caused your decline? Did eating meat and dairy improve your ms symptoms?

whoops hi guys sorry i missed this at first.

short answer for dianabee is yes. probably more due to red meat and eggs than dairy though.

you might be interested in having a read thru my regimens thread too - MS nutrition. more detail later - also you can search the forums for posts, by me, with the keyword vegan.

here's an early post by me.. holy flashbacks.. i love reading that because if i could go back in time i could say to that me, YOUR HANDS WILL BE BACK, JUST KEEP IT UP!! http://www.thisisms.com/ftopicp-14142.html#14142 soon i would discover klenner, eggs would enter the picture, more supplements, and yee-hawww!!!

anyway, i can pull all the relevant nutrition details out of my regimen thread and make it into an announcement, that should help

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

ps i had no idea how much i didn't know back then LOL

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

I'm still in remission of my first major attack, and I experience blank-outs in mid-speech occasionally, heightened stress/snapping (which may just be related to the grieving process, as I was diagnosed just less than a month ago), and trouble finding the right words quite often (and learning Norwegian at the same time, to boot!)

It comes and goes, I need to cut down on my coffee (I gave up on tobacco a week before I was diagnosed :p)

But as folks have said, everyone is different, and the medical profession still isn't unified on what exactly it is (I'm leaning more towards the idea that MS is a symptom, rather than a disease/disorder unto itself)

Keep us posted on nifty stuff that's happening in the world of particle physics, eh?

_________________


*profile pic drawn by my wife, Mira Arntzen*