Living With MS Episodes

I spent this past weekend attending the iConquer MS Leadership Summit in Boston. iConquer MS is a people-powered research network created by the Accelerated Cure Project for MS. Instead of just asking people with MS to provide data, iConquer MS is driven by people living with MS, and it represents a new paradigm of building collaborative partnerships to solve big healthcare questions. This past spring, I had an in-depth conversation with Dr. Robert McBurney, CEO of the Accelerated Cure Project ...

My guest on the podcast is Mitch Sturgeon. Mitch is an award-winning blogger, and with the publication of his book, Enjoying the Ride: Two Generations of Tragedy and Triumph, Mitch is a published author, as well. In 2001, Mitch was diagnosed with Primary Progressive MS. He was 35 years old at the time, and that was the same age that Mitch's mother was when she took a fall that left her a quadriplegic. Mitch's book is more than just a reflection of his MS journey. It's a story about a family wit...

Part of the unpredictability of multiple sclerosis is that it can attack in so many different ways. MS can impact your physical well-being, your emotional well-being, your functional abilities and your quality of life. And if your response to MS is to be seen by a single healthcare professional, some of those many aspects of MS can end up being overlooked and, sometimes, even unrecognized. And so they go untreated. That's why the best approach to treating MS is a team approach. My guest is Dr. ...

Shawn Feliciano was diagnosed with MS in 2009, and in 2012, she decided to challenge herself while raising awareness about MS by going on a Big Hike -- hiking 817 miles, from Utah to Arizona. Shawn's Big Hike may have been the perfect metaphor for living with the challenges of MS, and we're talking about having the resilience to take on a challenge, no matter what your personal Big Hike might be. We're also talking about a new study that demonstrates why it's in your best interest to stay on M...

Elizabeth Jameson is an artist who specializes in creating a bridge between art and neuroscience. Since being diagnosed with MS, Elizabeth has transformed her brain MRI scans into remarkable and provocative images that challenge how we view the brain, disability, and illness. In addition to creating her amazing artwork, Elizabeth is an ePatient Scholar and advisor to Stanford Medicine X, and she's written extensively about patient-centered healthcare, design, and the arts. This week, we're sta...

You've heard the statistic before -- 50% of the people living with MS will be diagnosed with depression. And research has shown us that some of the most troubling MS symptoms, including fatigue, cognition, and even physical disability, are all made worse by depression. Unfortunately, among people living with MS, depression is often overlooked, undiagnosed, and left to only get worse. So imagine an app that will tell you when you're heading toward depression before you even feel it. That's not s...

The caregiver's journey doesn't always get paid the proper amount of attention until a family caregiver finds themselves feeling isolated, overwhelmed, drained, and depressed. But it doesn't have to come to that. My guest is Dr. Kate Lorig, lead author of Building Better Caregivers: A Family Caregiver's Guide to Reducing Stress and Staying Healthy. And we're talking about how to go about building better caregivers. We're also talking about a new MRI technique that may enable doctors to identify...

Using cannabis to treat MS symptoms has become a hot topic. And thanks to social media, a lot of opinions about cannabis and MS are posted as if they're facts...and that's not always the case. So, we're talking about cannabis and MS in this episode of RealTalk MS. We'll try to demystify it a bit and we'll give you an idea of what some of the research is telling us. We'll talk about which MS symptoms cannabis might be good for...and which ones it might not be good for. We're also talking about t...

MS Activist Marques Jones is running for public office in his home state of Virginia. Marques and I sat down to discuss how his role as an MS Activist led to his candidacy, and how his MS diagnosis has continued to inform his business life and his political life. We're also talking about the existential threat that now exists for people with pre-existing medical conditions in the U.S., how the MSAA can provide financial assistance for your MRI exam, how Ocrevus may delay the need for a wheelcha...

Experts estimate that depression affects about 50% of the people diagnosed with MS. And, left unchecked, depression can take your vibrant, colorful world and re-draw it in somber shades of gray. If there's good news about depression, it's that it can be treated. In this special Vacation Edition of RealTalk MS, we're going to revisit a really important conversation that I had last November with Dr. Amy Sullivan, Director of Behavioral Medicine, Research and Training at the Mellen Center for Mult...