This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

if he had a gun in his mouth where he is with his ms good luck to him.

I hardly ever sit and watch TV, much less Oprah, but I would love to see that episode!

It was actually a pretty good show, very informative. They spent over half an hour talking about MS with Montel and Dr. Oz, and showed Montel at home, doing the shots, taking the supplements, working out. Dr. Oz explained MS and the variability of progression. And Oprah was representative of most folks, saying that she thought Montel's MS wasn't a big deal, since he "looks so good." So it was an eye-opener for her.

Montel did cry alot. I think he's got the emotional lability thing going on, where it's all on the surface. He talked about his constant pain, and how it just never goes away, and how he deals with it. I suppose I have more sympathy, since Jeff's MS is exactly like his...the constant pain and spasms, emotional stuff, fatigue. And people expect you to just get over it.

If you can catch a rerun, it might be worth it. There's info up on Oprah's site. But you're right, Robbie. He has it alot better than so many...but for better or worse, he's the public face of the disease. I like the man, because he's doing alot for others thru his foundation.
AC

His relationship (PAID relationship!) with the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is disturbing to me.

He is a paid spokesman for big pharma. The same big pharma that plans to spend millions in an ad campaign to make sure citizens are aware of the importance of "free market" forces with respect to drugs in the US. They oppose any attempt by the govt' to give Medicare the authority to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Americans. Estimates range this could cost the pharma. industry between $10 and $30 billion in yearly revenues. They are going to fight hard to keep that hunk of change, and Montel will be one tool they can use.

PhRMa plans to tell us in tv ads (featuring Montel) how somehow price negotiation by our government is a bad thing for us. Their token buses (promoting themselves) are a much better way of dealing with people who can't afford their drugs------while they continue to gouge the rest of us!

I do not think Montel serves the MS community---I think he serves himself. There are people who tirelessly raise money to find a cause and cure to this disease who NEVER profit from it. Why doesn't Oprah feature them? And being the spokesman for a group that seeks to undermine attempts to bring affordability to disease modifying drugs for MS is unconscionable in my opinion.

I am all for awareness---but the kind of awareness Montel touts, I'm not so sure.

AMEN!!!!!

I read his book Climbing Higher ... what an embarrassing display of self-absorption, even for a "memoir"-genre publication. I really didn't need to know all the ins and outs (ahem...) of his sex life with various "ladies" he was involved with... it wasn't so much the graphicness of his descriptions as much as the pages and pages he devoted to such things. I guess he's not getting it all out in therapy and feels he needs to tell the world in print.

He proudly declares that his foundation gives 100% of its intake to MS research (and takes swipes at foundations that don't give fully 100%). Now, I suspect that the NMSS spends too much on admin, and they're too devoted to Big Pharma for my taste, but can ANY nonprofit exist without paying some staff? Fine, multimillionaire Montel subsidizes the running costs of his foundation...all good and well. His foundation's supposed financial purity doesn't seem to confer independence on whom Montel will endorse, even though he is a self-styled rebel, doing Copaxone plus fringe/CAM therapies. He flies around the world consulting with MS experts for his personal condition, and he uses CAM therapies as well as Copaxone (though he tries to be coy in the book and not name it). Does he advocate CAM for other people, or just keep that information to himself and promote the CRABs?

I agree with sojourner -- Montel's shilling for Big Pharma is obscene.

What I don't get, if Montel can (presumably is) going around the country seeing MS experts, why is he sticking with Copaxone? Why isn't he trying one of the newer, stronger therapies out there?

I don't know much about Montel's situation, but from the little I've read, it sounds like he is progressing.

Doesn't matter what 'expert' you see. nobody has a cure or some special treatment.

I have to disagree; there are treatments out there beyond the normal CRABs. Funny, a few weeks ago you were real excited about Revimmune. I guess now you've decided that Copaxone is as good as it gets.

He gets in front of millions of people to describe ms, he says that his depression ends him up in a closet with a gun in his mouth, he says he is tired and his feet hurt, he then shows everyone how he goes to the gym and how he goes fishing with his father in law, he shows us how he takes his needle and vitamins everyday and that’s pretty much it. Thanks for describing your ms motel, the ms community would be proud to have our celebrity ms spokesman with 30 minutes of one of the ultimate TV spots and explain it how you did thanks again; you should have pulled the trigger.

get off your duff and make some videos to talk about MS. Many do now such as laureen. but you probably don't approve of her either since she has a life and has MS.

fuck off sham wow

Well, I agree with you all. I think Montel is SPMS at this point. But, His MS doesn't speak for the rest of us or, really, many of us. Oprah should have had others with MS, of varying ages and stages of disability. I think Montel did in one of his shows. My mother-in-law called me and said, "I didn't know you had that symptom!"

It bothers me, also, that MS was still explained by Dr. Oz as a demyleinating (always spell that wrong) disease. We all know it is so much more. The truth, that there is really nothing out there for SPMS, is so much more sinister (sorry for that adjective, but that's the way I feel) than the public is led to believe.

BTW, I wasn't called for that Gallop poll!!

Sandy