these are the things I could do without....

It's 3 days to the start of MS week.



MS week is all about raising awareness of multiple sclerosis and hopefully reaching people who don't know very much about the condition. There's just been a survey that has highlighted some of the misconceptions that people have about multiple sclerosis.

"Almost half of those surveyed in the poll couldn’t guess how many people in the UK have the condition, and of those who did answer, 80 per cent underestimated the true figure. In fact, only six per cent were able correctly to identify that there are more than 85,000 people in the UK with MS, making it the most common, disabling neurological condition affecting young adults. Just under half of respondents to the survey couldn’t name a single symptom of MS, while only a quarter realised that it’s a disease that mostly affects people aged between 25 and 34, when a diagnosis is most likely to be made. Around 40 per cent (two in five) of respondents assumed a diagnosis of MS meant a lifetime in a wheelchair, whereas just 20 per cent of people with MS rely on one.

Alarmingly, six per cent of people attributed MS to ‘public health issues’ such as obesity, poor diet, smoking or germs. Some respondents even thought MS led to brittle bones, bad teeth, phlegm and loss of appetite."

Obviously this is something that's very close to my heart (well, I suppose it's rather closer to my brain, but you know what I mean....). Read that and it soon becomes pretty clear why we need to raise awareness of the condition, no?

Expect to see more of this kind of stuff on this here next week.

Meanwhile, I'm off to the disease modifying treatment clinic tomorrow to discuss with a consultant neurologist what I'm going to be injecting myself with for the foreseeable future.....