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• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• About This Book
• Conventions Used in This Book
• What You’re Not to Read
• Foolish Assumptions
• How This Book Is Organized
• Part I: When MS Becomes Part of Your Life
• Part II: Taking Charge of Your MS
• Part III: Staying Healthy and Feeling Well
• Part IV: Managing Lifestyle Issues
• Part V: Creating Your Safety Nets
• Part VI: The Part of Tens
• Icons Used in This Book
• Where to Go from Here
• Part I: When MS Becomes Part of Your Life
• Chapter 1: Meeting MS Face to Face
• Introducing the Roles Your Immune and Nervous Systems Play in MS
• The immune system: Your body’s frontline defender
• The nervous system: Your body’s CEO
• What happens in MS
• Taking advantage of the body’s natural healing process
• Exploring Possible MS Triggers
• Gender clues
• Ethnic or racial clues
• Geographical clues
• Genetic clues
• Lifestyle clues
• Understanding Why Your MS Is as Unique as Your Fingerprint
• Distinguishing the four disease courses
• Scanning the possible symptoms
• Reviewing the MS Treatment Menu
• Recognizing How Your MS Affects Your Loved Ones
• Talking about the tough stuff
• Keeping daily life on track
• Maintaining healthy partnerships
• Becoming confi dent parents
• Minimizing the Impact of MS on Work and Play
• Protecting Your Quality of Life
• Chapter 2: So, Doc, What Do I Have? Getting a Diagnosis
• Clarifying the Diagnostic Criteria
• Getting Familiar with the Neurologist’s Diagnostic Tools
• Medical history
• Neurologic exam
• Various medical tests
• Identifying a clinically isolated syndrome
• Understanding Why the Road to Diagnosis Can Have Detours
• Chapter 3: You Have MS — So Now What?
• First Things First: Sorting Out Your Feelings
• Shock: “What just hit me?”
• Denial: “This isn’t happening”
• Confusion: “Why me?”
• Anxiety: “What’s going to happen to me?”
• Anger: “This just isn’t fair!”
• Relief: “Finally! Now I know what’s up!”
• Deciding on the Next Steps
• Catch your breath before making any major changes or decisions
• Have a heart-to-heart conversation with your neurologist about treatment
• Begin talking about MS with the people in your life
• Make a commitment to your health
• Facing the Longer-Term Challenges of a Chronic Illness
• The how-to of healthy grieving
• Living with unpredictability
• Making Treatment and Lifestyle Choices That Work for You
• Minimizing the stress of decision-making
• Getting the professional help you need
• Reaching out for emotional support
• Chapter 4: Getting the Right Players on Your Healthcare Team
• Working with Your Physician
• Finding a neurologist with the qualities you value
• Establishing a pattern of routine care
• Making the most of your doctor visits
• Knowing when to call in the MS specialist
• Getting a second opinion
• Rounding Up Other Key Players
• The nurse for education, guidance, and support
• The rehabilitation specialists to help you keep on truckin’
• The mental health specialists to help you keep your head on straight
• Other important specialists
• Considering Comprehensive MS Treatment Centers
• Part II: Taking Charge of Your MS
• Chapter 5: Developing a Plan to Take Charge of Your MS
• Using Multiple Strategies to Manage MS
• Modifying the disease course
• Managing acute relapses
• Taking charge of your symptoms
• Enhancing function through rehabilitation
• Engaging psychosocial support
• Taking care of your health
• Tapping Your Creativity and Flexibility
• Creating Your Own Treatment Template
• Chapter 6: Managing the Disease Course and Treating Relapses
• Managing the Disease Course
• Understanding the whys and wherefores of early treatment
• Getting to know the first-line options
• Turning to the Plan B options
• Setting realistic expectations for the DMTs
• Carefully considering benefits and risks
• A word about progressive forms of MS
• Managing Relapses
• Defining a relapse
• Treating an acute relapse
• Feeling Confident about Your Treatment Decisions
• Chapter 7: Managing Fatigue, Walking Problems, Visual Changes, and Tremor
• Foiling Your Fatigue
• Identifying and dealing with the causes of fatigue
• Managing your energy bank to help put your sleepiness to bed
• Envisioning Solutions to Vision Problems
• Managing visual symptoms
• Exploring longer-term management strategies
• Getting Around Walking Problems
• Addressing the sources of the problem
• Using medication to improve walking
• Using aids to take charge of your mobility
• Taming Tremor
• Chapter 8: Handling Problems with Bladder and Bowel Function, Pain, Speech and Swallowing, and Sex
• Eliminating Elimination Problems
• Managing your bothersome bladder
• Dealing with your bowel symptoms
• Sidestepping Sensory Symptoms and Pain
• Sorting Out Speech and Swallowing Problems
• Speech and voice problems: Articulating the facts
• Watching out for swallowing problems
• Sizing Up Sexual Symptoms
• Identifying the changes you may be experiencing
• Silence isn’t golden: Talking is the fi rst step
• Treating your sexual symptoms
• Chapter 9: Getting Your Head around Problems with Mood and Thinking
• Managing the Emotional Ups and Downs
• Dealing with depression
• Controlling moodiness and irritability
• Getting a handle on uncontrollable laughing or crying
• Handling Problems with Thinking and Memory
• Defining cognition
• Understanding how MS can affect your cognition
• Deciding when an evaluation is in order
• Knowing what to expect during an evaluation
• Identifying treatment options
• Employing practical strategies for managing daily cognitive challenges
• Chapter 10: Considering Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Defining CAM
• Understanding the Allure
• Putting CAM to the Test
• Understanding the role of the FDA
• Sorting out the wheat from the chaff
• Identifying CAM Interventions That May Be Useful in Managing Symptoms
• Herbs, vitamins, and other CAM options that go into the body
• Exercise, prayer, and other CAM options done independently or in a class
• Acupuncture, massage, and other CAM options performed by a practitioner
• Looking at Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI)
• Understanding the CCSVI firestorm
• Ongoing efforts to clarify the relationship between CCSVI and MS
• Recommendations from the MS experts
• Becoming a Cautious CAM Consumer
• Part III: Staying Healthy and Feeling Well
• Chapter 11: Paying Attention to Your Health — It’s Not All about MS
• Enhancing Your Wellness by Paying Attention to the Whole You
• Scheduling Routine Checkups to Protect Your Health
• Making Healthy Eating a Priority
• Taking MS into account when planning your menu
• Battling the barriers to healthy eating
• Improving Your MS and Overall Wellness with Exercise
• Overcoming the hurdles
• Exercising your options
• Maximizing your comfort and safety during exercise
• Increasing Your Chances of Success
• Chapter 12: Handling Stress without Giving Up Your Life
• Understanding the Relationship between Stress and MS
• Recognizing Your Own Signs of Stress
• Feeling the physical signs of stress
• Feeling the emotional signs of stress
• Identifying Your Major Stresses
• Dealing with stress on the job
• Handling family stress with composure
• Managing your MS stress
• Creating Your Stress Management Plan
• Figuring out your priorities
• Setting realistic goals
• Cutting yourself some slack
• Taking some practical steps
• Tapping available resources
• Zoning in on your “MS-free zone”
• Practicing stress management techniques
• Chapter 13: Coping with Progressive Forms of MS
• Scouting Out the Treatment Scene
• Understanding your treatment options
• Exploring ways to feel and function at your best
• Taking steps to prevent unnecessary complications
• Maintaining Your Quality of Life
• Holding on to what’s important to you
• Staying connected with other people
• Establishing goals and enjoying the satisfaction of meeting them
• Keeping your self-image well-polished
• Finding your “MS-free zone”
• Helping yourself by helping someone else
• Discovering Long-Term Care Services (Just in Case)
• Defi ning long-term care
• Getting help in your home
• Looking into adult day care
• Identifying assisted-living options
• Considering nursing home care
• Important Tips for Care Partners
• Part IV: Managing Lifestyle Issues
• Chapter 14: Presenting Your MS Face to the World
• Explaining Your MS to Others
• Providing the basics
• Dealing with common reactions
• Remembering that MS is part of you but not all of you
• Disclosing Your Diagnosis to a Prospective Partner
• Communicating Your Needs
• Giving clear messages
• Staking out your independence
• P.S. Doctors can’t read your mind either
• Chapter 15: Making MS a Part of the Family
• Addressing Your Family Members’ Feelings about Your Diagnosis
• Communicating Effectively with Adult Family Members
• Recognizing communication barriers
• Getting the ball rolling toward more open communication
• Keeping the Family Rhythm Going so Your MS Doesn’t Steal the Show
• Coping with the direct and indirect costs
• Managing energy and time
• Establishing family priorities
• Problem-solving: Many heads are better than one
• Building and Maintaining Healthy Partner Relationships
• Making time for each other
• Keeping the intimacy alive
• Maintaining a balanced partnership
• What to do when one partner can’t participate in joint activities
• Turning a caregiving relationship into a care partnership
• When Your Child Has MS
• Helping your adult child with MS
• Young children and teens get MS too
• Chapter 16: And Baby Makes Three, Four, or More: Planning a Family around Your MS
• MS and Babies: Here’s the Good News!
• Fertility isn’t affected by MS
• Pregnancy hormones reduce disease activity
• Pregnancies don’t increase a woman’s long-term disability level
• Childbirth isn’t a piece of cake for anyone but women with MS do just fine
• Parents with MS have healthy babies
• Breastfeeding is definitely an option
• Considering Key Issues when Making Family-Planning Decisions
• Minding your medications
• Remembering that babies don’t stay babies very long
• Facing the uncertainties: The future doesn’t come with guarantees
• Strategies for Smart Decision-Making
• Consult your MS doctor
• Evaluate your financial situation
• Take a good look at your teamwork
• Check out your support network
• Have a heart-to-heart with your partner
• Talk to other parents living with MS
• Remember that your plans can change
• Chapter 17: Parenting: It Wasn’t Easy Before You Had MS!
• Keeping the Communication Lines Open
• Telling the kids about your MS makes good sense
• Finding ways to broach the big issues
• Explaining those pesky symptoms
• Parenting around Your MS Symptoms
• “I’m so tired; I’m in bed before they are!”
• “How can I be a good dad if I can’t even play ball?”
• “How can I discipline — if I can’t catch ’em?”
• Employing Effective Parenting Strategies
• Call a spade a spade: Let MS take the blame when it needs to
• Come up with a creative backup plan
• Call on your support network
• Remember, MS isn’t always to blame — other people’s teenagers are a pain too
• Handle little issues before they get bigger
• Allow kids to be kids
• Part V: Creating Your Safety Nets
• Chapter 18: Keeping Your Place in the Workforce
• Understanding the High Rate of Unemployment in MS
• Counting the Reasons to Keep on Truckin’
• Speed Bumps Ahead: Recognizing the Job-Related Challenges
• When symptoms get in the way
• When attitudes get in the way
• Knowing Your Rights under the ADA
• Disclosing your MS in the workplace
• Understanding the terms used in the law
• Requesting reasonable accommodations
• Calling in the EEOC
• Thinking about Leaving Your Job
• Exhausting your short-term leave options
• Looking into long-term disability options
• Making the choices that are right for you
• Chapter 19: Getting a Grip on Insurance
• Considering Your Health Insurance Options — It’s All about Eligibility
• Employment-based insurance programs
• Public health insurance programs
• Insurance plans for the self-employed
• Options if you don’t have health insurance
• Holding on to Your Health Insurance
• Continuing coverage with COBRA
• Protecting your coverage with HIPAA
• Seeing COBRA and HIPAA work as a team
• Understanding the Ins and Outs of Your Health Insurance Plan
• Filing Successful Insurance Appeals
• Step 1: Check your coverage
• Step 2: Confirm why coverage was denied or was less than expected
• Step 3: File an appeal
• Replacing Your Income with Disability Insurance
• Commercial disability insurance
• Public disability insurance: SSDI
• A Brief Word about Life and Long-Term Care Insurance
• Chapter 20: Planning for a Future with MS
• Preparing for the Worst While Hoping for the Best
• Facing those scary “what-ifs?”
• Taking charge of your future
• Navigating the Planning Process: It’s as Easy as One, Two, Three
• Where are you now?
• What might the future bring?
• What can you do now to be ready?
• Part VI: The Part of Tens
• Chapter 21: Ten MS Myths Debunked
• MS Is Fatal
• Everyone Eventually Needs a Wheelchair
• Because There’s No Cure, There’s Nothing You Can Do about Your MS
• People with MS Can’t Handle Stress
• People with MS Shouldn’t Have Children
• Having a Relapse Means Your Medication Isn’t Working
• “Natural” Treatments Are Safer
• No One Can Understand How You Feel
• Scientists Aren’t Making Any Progress
• If You Can’t Walk, Your Life Is Over
• Chapter 22: Ten Questions about Exciting Leads in MS Research . .
• Can Vitamin D Help Prevent MS?
• How Many Genes Play a Role in MS?
• What Medications Are on the Horizon?
• Could Worms Become an MS Treatment?
• Can Exercise Improve Your Memory?
• Can the Nervous System be Repaired?
• Could Brain Tissue Loss Alter Mood?
• What Might MS in Children Tell Researchers about the Cause(s) of MS?
• Can a Brain Damaged by MS Rewire Itself to Compensate for the Loss?
• What Does the Future Hold?
• Chapter 23: Ten Tips for Trouble-Free Travel
• Tap the Right Resources
• Calm Your Medical Concerns
• Save Energy for the Fun Stuff
• Check Ahead for Accessibility
• Rent Accessible Vehicles
• Keep Your Cool
• Navigate Air Travel with Confi dence
• Safely Pack Your Prescriptions
• Get Vaccinated
• Look for Adventure
• Glossary
• Index
• EULA