Now That You're Diagnosed With MS
Reviewed by Michael Smith on December 07, 2020
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JEFFREY B. ENGLISH, MD: The most important step, when you're diagnosed with MS, is education, to understand the disease, what are signs and symptoms of MS, what are signs and symptoms that things are getting worse. MS really is specific to each person, when it comes to treatments, when it comes to expectations, activities of daily living, and maintaining a normal life. So it's really important to kind of talk to your provider so you make sure that you kind of understand what the independent goals are.
Everybody has different goals, and we want to meet those goals in treatment and activities of daily living and normal life activities and work. So we try and have people live as normal lives as possible, because most people with MS can function completely normal. I don't want them to stop certain activities.
Certain people have different symptoms with multiple sclerosis that make it harder to do one thing or another. So it's really important for us to sort of educate what things make that more difficult. An example would be patients with multiple sclerosis, some will fatigue easier.
The hotter it is outside, the more they will fatigue or get a weakness or something like that. So things like rest and hydration, things that you and I might take for granted, that patients with multiple sclerosis have to sort of focus on a little bit more. So it gets back to the question about education, understanding what is MS, what types of things might make you feel a little bit worse.
JEFFREY B. ENGLISH, MD: The most important step, when you're diagnosed with MS, is education, to understand the disease, what are signs and symptoms of MS, what are signs and symptoms that things are getting worse. MS really is specific to each person, when it comes to treatments, when it comes to expectations, activities of daily living, and maintaining a normal life. So it's really important to kind of talk to your provider so you make sure that you kind of understand what the independent goals are.
Everybody has different goals, and we want to meet those goals in treatment and activities of daily living and normal life activities and work. So we try and have people live as normal lives as possible, because most people with MS can function completely normal. I don't want them to stop certain activities.
Certain people have different symptoms with multiple sclerosis that make it harder to do one thing or another. So it's really important for us to sort of educate what things make that more difficult. An example would be patients with multiple sclerosis, some will fatigue easier.
The hotter it is outside, the more they will fatigue or get a weakness or something like that. So things like rest and hydration, things that you and I might take for granted, that patients with multiple sclerosis have to sort of focus on a little bit more. So it gets back to the question about education, understanding what is MS, what types of things might make you feel a little bit worse.
