Westerner living with MS in China... Any others?
Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 5:34 am
Hello all,
I am a new member here and wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the information already posted.
My main reason for posting is that I am a US citizen who has been living and working here in China for many years. I was diagnosed right before I first came almost 7yrs ago and really had no symptoms so I just kinda "forgot" about it. Well... No more forgetting these days
Problem is that I don't really have a primary physician and hospitals here are good, but very different in their approach. Also, MS is a less common disease in Asia so even the doctors I have seen have not been terribly helpful. I have had multiple MRIs here (they are super cheap... About 100US a pop) but doctors don't seem to be able to read them very well for lesions and actuall had one doc say that he saw no signs of MS. That might be so, but I have bilateral leg weakness, classic MS "hug" feelings, a previous diagnosis, and just generally feel like s**t so something is wrong!
I would LOVE to hear from any others, Western or Chinese that are dealing with MS and living in mainland China. What doctors do you see? What therapies (if any) are you involved in? Etc.
Any and all advice would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance to all.
Male - 33yrs old
(PS- I would love to end this with some inspirational, "just keep your head up!!" type of tag line, but if the readers here are at all like me, it will annoy 50% of you and encourage the other 50%. Then tomorrow it will annoy the 50% that it encouraged yesterday and encourage the 50% it annoyed yesterday. So I'm guaranteed to encourage and annoy 100%
I am a new member here and wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the information already posted.
My main reason for posting is that I am a US citizen who has been living and working here in China for many years. I was diagnosed right before I first came almost 7yrs ago and really had no symptoms so I just kinda "forgot" about it. Well... No more forgetting these days
Problem is that I don't really have a primary physician and hospitals here are good, but very different in their approach. Also, MS is a less common disease in Asia so even the doctors I have seen have not been terribly helpful. I have had multiple MRIs here (they are super cheap... About 100US a pop) but doctors don't seem to be able to read them very well for lesions and actuall had one doc say that he saw no signs of MS. That might be so, but I have bilateral leg weakness, classic MS "hug" feelings, a previous diagnosis, and just generally feel like s**t so something is wrong!
I would LOVE to hear from any others, Western or Chinese that are dealing with MS and living in mainland China. What doctors do you see? What therapies (if any) are you involved in? Etc.
Any and all advice would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance to all.
Male - 33yrs old
(PS- I would love to end this with some inspirational, "just keep your head up!!" type of tag line, but if the readers here are at all like me, it will annoy 50% of you and encourage the other 50%. Then tomorrow it will annoy the 50% that it encouraged yesterday and encourage the 50% it annoyed yesterday. So I'm guaranteed to encourage and annoy 100%