Choices Information Leaflets

There are numerous conditions which exhibit similar symptoms to Multiple Sclerosis. Some of these conditions are detailed below:

Hughes Syndrome

Lupus

Transverse Myelitis (TM)

Lyme Disease

ME/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)

Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO or Devics disease)

To download Choices Is It MS? please click here.

Disabled Living Centres provide advice and information on equipment designed to help with daily living. The centres usually have products and equipment on display which visitors can try out to see which suits best.

Disabled Living Centres can also give information about access to equipment or everyday living. You may need to make an appointment so do telephone the centre before you travel.

To download Choices Diagnosis please click here.

A number of people with MS have found that by having a restricted diet, they can manage some of their MS symptoms. There are several diets that claim to help with the symptoms of MS. The two main ones are The Best Bet Diet and The Swank Diet.

Ashton Embry’s Best Bet Diet (BBD) Ashton Embry has based his diet on the theory that an autoimmunity process is ignited by undigested food proteins escaping through the gut wall and into the circulatory system. This causes the immune system to attack the ‘invaders’. This process is known as Leaky Gut Syndrome....

To download Choices Diet & Nutrition please click here.

Tysabri (Natalizumab) is a class of drug known as selective adhesion
molecule (SAM) inhibitors.

Tysabri works differently to disease modifying
drugs (DMDs).

To download Choices Tysabri please click here.

Disease Modifying Drugs – DMDs – are drugs which affect the long-term progression of MS.

They target inflammation and are designed to reduce the damage caused by relapses. By doing this, the number and severity of relapses decreases.

Some of these drugs have been found to delay the long term progression of MS and reduce the number of new lesions forming.

To download Choices Disease Modifying Drugs please click here.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system (your brain and your spinal cord). The central nervous system cells are covered in a protective layer of fatty protein called the myelin sheath (a bit like the insulation on an electrical cable).

MS is an auto-immune disease, where the immune system gets confused and  instead of attacking an infection or virus, the immune system turns on itself and attacks the nerve cells, damaging this protective sheath. This process is called demyelination.

To download Choices What Is MS? please click here.

LDN has been used in the treatment of MS in the USA since 1985 but it is relatively new in the United Kingdom. Despite the fact that the drug is at a very low dose, significant introductory or prolonged side effects cannot be excluded.

Naltrexone is a drug referred to as an opiate antagonist. Its normal use is to treat opiate drug addicts addicted to drugs such as heroin or morphine. The dose used for this purpose is usually between 50
and 150mg per day.

To download Choices Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) please click here.

There are numerous MS Therapy Centres around the UK and Ireland providing a miriad of services to those affected by MS

To download Choices Therapy Centres (UK & Ireland) please click here.

What is Primary Progressive MS?

Approximately 10% of people with MS are told they have Primary  Progressive MS – a form of MS where from the first or primary symptoms, the progression of the disease is continuous from the outset.

Symptoms get continually worse over time rather than having attacks and relapses.
 
Primary Progressive MS is usually diagnosed in people in their 40s and 50s (older than the average age for diagnosis of relapsing remitting MS) although in some cases it can be diagnosed in those younger or older than this.

To download Choices Exercise please click here.

Multiple Sclerosis affects approximately 2.5 million people worldwide, and it is estimated 2-5% of them are children. 

As recently as 20 years ago, it was believed that children did not get MS and many children who had MS-like symptoms were often misdiagnosed. However, with the advent of more advanced imaging techniques, and an acceptance  by neurologists and paediatricians that paediatric MS is a possibility, more and more children, (some as young as 2) are being diagnosed and it is now believed that approximately 5% of people with MS develop symptoms before the
age of 16.

Paediatric MS is defined as MS in those under the age of 18. It can occur in children of any age; however it is more likely to be identified during teenage years.

To download Choices Paediatric MS please click here.

Information, education and advice of practical aspects of living with
MS, family affairs and children, research and therapy advice and
support counselling.

To download Choices Useful Organisations please click here.

Most people with MS, regardless of their degree of disability, can benefit from some exercise. Many have some degree of ability. The right kind of exercise can bring positive physical and psychological health benefits.

Exercise helps you do the things you want to do and helps to prevent complications that can result from inactivity. It can improve flexibility, fitness, strength and stamina, circulation, muscle tone and mood. It can also help with the stimulation of fluids and excretion of waste products.

Many people with MS think they cannot do any exercise because they will become too fatigued but the strange fact is that it can actually give you energy rather than take it away from you – as long as you exercise sensibly and know your levels of ability. It is important to balance the exercise with rest. You may wish to only undertake short sessions so you can avoid overheating. Remember, over-exercise can lead to weakness, fatigue, pain and spasticity. Therefore it is sometimes better to build up your exercises slowly.

To download Choices Exercise please click here.

Clinical trials are an integral part of the drug development process. They are research studies involving patients’ participation and are vital for continued medical research.

They usually take place once extensive animal testing has shown that any new treatments being assessed are safe.

No matter how promising a new treatment may appear, it must go through a proper clinical trial before its benefits and risks can be certain. In the UK, the researchers must obtain approval from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency before a trial involving medicines can start.

They must draw up a plan called a protocol, which includes information such
as who and how many people will take part, what question(s) the trial aims
to answer, what treatments will be compared and how the test results will
be collected.

To download Choices Taking Part In Clinical Trials please click here.

Currently in work:
Yours rights If you are finding that your work situation is becoming difficult, the first thing to do is talk to your employer. By law they have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for you in the work place.

Be clear about what your main concerns are. A lot of people with MS find that stress is a big factor.

While coping with the normal day to day stress of the job there is also the additional stress caused by MS related issues, such as being concerned that you have forgotten something, or that simply you will not be able to complete a task.

You should be clear that MS is not a loss of mental ability but can be a loss of ability to retain information, such as dates, times, process etc.

To download Choices MS & Work please click here.

If you have a disability such as MS, then the Social Services department of your local council are the first step towards getting the help and support you need.

Social Services have a duty under the Community Care Act 1990 to make a health and social care assessment of need and also those of your carer.

Depending on the extent of your needs and the criteria used by your Local Authority, you will be entitled to a range of care services.

You have a legal right to be able to obtain care services support which:
(1) Enable you to live in your own home
(2) Enable you to retain as much independence as possible, whether at
home or in residential care
(3) Are tailored to your individual needs

To download Choices Social Services please click here.

Benefits are paid by the Department of Work and Pensions. There are three broad categories these benefits fall under:

Those intended to replace earnings.
This isn’t just for unemployment. There are also benefits that support you if you are unable to work because of sickness, disability, pregnancy, retirement or caring responsibilities.

Those that compensate for extra costs
These benefits are intended to contribute towards the extra costs of disability. There are also benefits which contribute to the costs of raising a family.

Those that help alleviate poverty.
These benefits are intended to help those on a low income.

To download Choices Benefits please click here.

Fatigue is one of the most common ‘invisible’ symptoms of MS and one which can have a major impact on all aspects of life. For some people it is the symptom that affects them the most.

It varies greatly from one person to the next. It can come and go; be triggered by a number of things; a first symptom or a symptom that starts much later on in the disease process.

Fatigue is often a symptom that people find difficult to explain. It isn’t like the general feeling of being tired; it is more of an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion for often no apparent reason. It can interfere with day to day activities and can prevent the individual from doing or completing tasks.

To download Choices Fatigue please click here.

Visual problems are a common symptom amongst people with MS.

There are generally three main types of Visual Disturbances in MS; however there are also several minor ones as well. The three main types are Optic Neuritis, Nystagmus and Diplopia (double vision).

Some people may also experience temporary blurring of vision, temporary loss of vision, pain with eye movement, blind spots and double vision.

Often a vision problem is the first symptom. Optic Neuritis is the most common of symptoms associated with MS.

To download Choices Visual Distrubances please click here.

Hyperbaric / High Dose Oxygen Therapy, sometimes known as HBO, HBOT or more recently as HDOT. This therapy basically involves breathing through a mask whilst inside a pressurised chamber, similar to that used in diving.

A higher concentration of oxygen than normal saturates your blood and tissue. The chamber is usually shared with a few other people, depending on the size of the chamber. A treatment plan usually consists of a course of around 20 or so sessions, each one lasting an hour, spread over the course of a month. These are followed by “top-up” sessions, which may vary from once a week to once a month.

By breathing pure oxygen whilst under increased air pressure, many people find relief from their symptoms and, it is thought, some help in slowing down the progression of the disease.

To download Choices High Dose Oxygen Therapy please click here.

Many people with Multiple Sclerosis have benefited hugely from using complementary and alternative therapies. There are a number of therapeutic approaches available. These can be in addition to or ‘complementary’ to conventional treatments, or as an ‘alternative’ to the traditional approach.

It is estimated that between 50 and 75 percent of people with MS have used a form of complementary or alternative therapy to help manage their symptoms in one way or another.

To download Choices Complementary & Other Therapies please click here.

Prescription drugs are now used as part of managing MS. It is quite essential that Neurologist assessments are undertaken as soon as possible after diagnosis.

Disease Modifying Drugs (DMDs)
At the moment there are four DMDs – Disease Modifying Drugs, which can reduce the frequency and severity of clinical relapses. A relapse can be defined as periodic attacks of MS symptoms followed by full or partial recovery.

In some cases complete recovery may occur from all symptoms, but in most cases recovery is partial. Relapses may recur every few months or may be as much as years apart.

To download Choices Drug Therapies please click here.

Pain, in particular the kind of ever-present intractable (difficult, stubborn, hard to control) chronic (persisting for a long time, possibly severe) pain may, for some people, be of low intensity but continually be there; for others it can be intense and come and go perhaps several times a day.

Up until fairly recently, MS was considered to be a painless disease. However, now it seems that over half of people with MS will experience pain at some stage. There are two widely recognised forms of pain in MS:
• Neuropathic pain
• Musculoskeletal pain

To download Choices Pain please click here.

MSRC believes that based on experience, people cope best when they look at what is happening, rather than what might be. MS can cause a long list of symptoms; this list is not exhaustive and it is extremely unlikely that any one person would experience all or even most of these symptoms.

Most will only experience a small number of these.

To download Choices MS Symptoms please click here.

There are four main types of MS. However it is often not clear what type someone has if for example, they are newly diagnosed.

The effects of MS can vary hugely from person to person.

To download Choices Types Of MS please click here.

People often wonder why it is sometimes difficult for medical advisers to decide on a diagnosis or, at any rate to tell a person the name of the disease or condition involved. This is not an uncommon experience in Multiple Sclerosis.

Also many other conditions may produce symptoms almost indistinguishable from MS symptoms.

To download Choices Diagnosis please click here.