Living With MS Episodes

This episode is sponsored by Celgene and the MS MindShift Initiative, which aims to educate about the important role the brain plays in MS. My guest is Yvonne DeSousa, who is a paid spokesperson for the MS MindShift. Yvonne was diagnosed with MS in 2009. She quickly discovered that humor was able to help settle her fears and act as a release. Years later, Yvonne has continued using humor to not only improve her mood, but she's also worked to spread laughter and joy to the rest of the MS communi...

My guest this week is TV personality, Montel Williams. Since receiving his MS diagnosis in 1999, Montel has been a highly visible advocate for people living with MS. We're talking to Montel about his initial reaction to his own MS diagnosis, and what advice he would give to someone who was diagnosed with MS today (HINT: it's great advice!). We'll also talk to Montel about My MS Second Act, a new initiative that he's helping to launch and that you can get involved in. We're also talking about th...

This special episode of RealTalk MS is sponsored by Celgene and the MS MindShift initiative, which aims to educate about the important role the brain plays in MS. My guest is Ashley Ringstaff, who is a paid spokesperson for the MS MindShift. Ashley was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS at the age of 22. Many of us know that MS can be very unpredictable – never knowing what symptoms you'll have to deal with day-to-day. This can lead to frustration for many people living with the disease. Ash...

For almost 20 years, the CLIMB Study has been following thousands of MS patients, discovering so many aspects of multiple sclerosis and documenting how the disease changes over time. My guest is Dr. Tanuja Chitnis, Director of the CLIMB Study, Director of the Partners Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center at MassGeneral Hospital for Children, as well as the Director of the Translational Neuroimmunology Research Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital. We're also talking about an emerging topic tha...

When you're living with MS, it can feel as though you're taking a few extra things with you when you go to work. For instance, if you haven't told your employer that you've been diagnosed with MS, you're taking along the extra burden of having to keep a secret. You might be trying your best to manage your MS symptoms on the job, dealing with things like fatigue, vision problems, and even physical balance. During the workday, all of these things -- these "extra burdens" -- get piled right on top ...

Sometimes, you can just look at someone and know how they're feeling. Our ability to "read people" is called social cognition. And we're learning that people living with MS can lose their social cognition skills, making every face-to-face interaction more difficult. My guest is Dr. Helen Genova, the Assistant Director of the Kessler Foundation's Center for Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research, the Director of the Social Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory at the Kessler Foundation, and an...

Being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis means learning to live with a whole new set of challenges. Rising to meet those challenges and learning how to thrive in spite of those challenges is called resilience. But resilience isn't something that you're necessarily born with. Just like a muscle, resilience is something that you can choose to develop. My guest, Dr. Brandon Beaber, specializes in treating people living with MS and he's the author of Resilience in the Face of Multiple Sclerosis, a bo...

This week, we're talking about palliative care for MS. It's a topic that a lot of people living with MS still don't know enough about, but palliative care can offer real benefits in attaining the best overall quality of life. Joining me in discussing palliative care is my guest, Cherie Binns. Cherie was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS in 1994. She's been a Registered Nurse for 45 years, and Cherie is also an Internationally Certified MS Nurse. Cherie serves as the co-chair of the iConquer...

Five years ago, James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Shepherd decided to hold a barbecue event in his restaurant's parking lot, to raise money for the National MS Society. Today, the Southern Smoke Festival has grown into the largest 3rd party MS Society fundraising event in the United States, and with the 5th Annual Southern Smoke Festival just a few weeks away, we're talking with Chris about how this event got its start, and how it's grown to be one of the most noteworthy culinary events in th...

My guest is Kyra Millich, who, until October of 2013, was a consumer protection litigator in San Francisco, recently married, and already thinking about planning a family. And that's when she received her MS diagnosis. I don't know if Kyra would say that her diagnosis changed her life, or clarified it, but I found Kyra's MS journey to be interesting, inspirational, and instructional. And I think you will too. We're also talking about a breakthrough study in which a research team was able to rev...