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Will my work schedule put me in a higher risk of an attack? Let me Explain.

when i got dx with MS I quit my second job, cause it is what my neuro recommend.

Year later Im still in debt of old and new medical bills cause I cant find an insurance I can afford or take me on cause I have a pre existing issue as I will call it, and i dont wanna go on a drug, cause they make me feel weird and ruin my thought process, which im a graphic artist that is my life and how I make my money, if I can focus cause of this or that or shot night fears, I will lose my job

So I got my old job back at a retail store, work 15-25 hours a week on top of my 40 hour job at the Tv station

Im noticing I feel a little more run down than I remember, which im sure will just be a transistion fatique til i get the new schedule in tact. As I play catch up with my bills working these jobs, with no health insurance am I taking too big of a risk? and if so, any suggestions on getting insurance? I dont qualify for state aid, and my full time job wants 200+ every two week for just me on a plan that isnt that good and doesnt cover most things I would need.

So If you made sense of my issues and have some suggestions, let me hear em

I am going through this same ordeal right now. How much should I work? I am lucky in the aspect that I am self-employed, but I used to work about 50 to 60 hours a week. I am scared to say goodbye to the money, but I also do not want to wear out my body. I know that I can work quite well if I get a break in the middle of the day to take a nap or rest at least an hour. Is there anyway that you can add a break in your day to rest your body?

I don't know that there is a real proven answer to this. But my thinking tells me that the more active you are the your body responds by maintaining the abilities you have. I realize that this sounds a lot like the sports coach shouting "no pain, no gain", but I think it works like that.

Triggers are an all together different thing, I think. But that also boils down to your idea of what causes MS. I think the autoimmune folks might say something different than the infection folks. When Kim starts to feel a little more uncertain of her footing, ibuprofen often helps her. Also, if you are using caffine to try and get more out but it seems to really crash you in the end, that could also tie into infection theory. Ken

It works like that until you reach a certain point in your disease progression. I pushed myself and "no pain, no gain"'d it for quite some time. It reaches a tipping point however, where if you push too hard, you're down for days. It doesn't sound like you're at that point yet because if you were you wouldn't have even considered it! I would say as long as you're able, go for it because there may come a time when you just can't push it. That's when this shit gets real. You'll know when you've reached it because you'll be attempting to push it and your body just simply won't let you. I had a few scary times where I just had to get something done out on the shop floor and went out to do it (we have a big plant) and got stuck because it was hot and I just couldn't walk anymore. I sat down on a box right where I was at and had someone bring me a forklift to drive back to the office area! Part of the progression is trying to understand your limits and realizing that there will come a time, potentially, where you need to know where they are.

Hopefully you never reach that point, but there may come a time when pushing it is not an option. So my suggestion is "wring out the wash rag" while it's still got water in it.

Here's an interesting article I found:

Goodin, Douglas et al. 1999 The relationship of MS to physical trauma and psychological stress: Report of the Therapeutics and Technology Assessment Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology

Ken