Living with MS: My Story
Felix, who lives with relapsing MS and Craig, who lives with primary progressive MS, talk about the impact of the disease on their daily lives.
Felix
Felix is a 31-year-old photographer and football fan. He experienced his first symptom of MS in 2005, and was diagnosed with relapsing MS in 2009.
I stopped reading books in about 2007, because when I read a book I just can’t remember at the end of one page, what was happening at the beginning of the page.
The first symptoms I experienced were problems with balance and keeping my hands steady. I once had a relapse affecting my feet and it felt like my feet weren’t belonging to me. It was really strange and frustrating.
I go to the fitness studio one-to-two times a week. In the fitness studio my personal trainer is doing more training for balance with me and I go to the fitness studio with my wife and it’s a big difference seeing my wife doing balance training [compared] to me as she has much more balance than me.
Craig is a professional pianist. He experienced his first symptom of MS in his 30s, and was diagnosed with primary progressive MS in his mid-40s.
I suppose from my mid 30’s I really started to feel that something wasn’t quite right. I would run and then I couldn’t stop or I had trouble running, my left leg started dragging and so I thought this was wrong.
Worryingly for me being a piano player, I was getting numbness in my fingers, particularly in my tips of fingers, and I was missing things on the piano and I couldn’t feel the keyboard quite so well.
Independence for me now is really the ability to be able to get to work, to be able to make myself a cup of tea and breakfast. I try and get the maximum out of the quality of life that I can with what I’m presented with health wise.