CraterBrain: Need a New Year's Resolution? Support the search for a cure

My case of MS isn't all that bad. Not when compared to what others must go through. I live a mostly normal life as long as I don't overdo things. I work. I exercise. I am a parent and a wife. I can move around and speak mostly in complete sentences and see. I don't have to wear a diaper. I don't have to sit in a hospital with an IV in my arm (in fact, I never have). I have meds that will cover most of my shortcomings: usually something for migraine pain as needed, and daily help with fatigue, for instance, as well as OTC goodies like Imodium and GasX to get me through the stomach issues that sometimes come as side effects from my DMD.

But I'm well aware that this is not the case for many--those who are on disability or who are in the process of applying for it because they can no longer do the ordinary things that the rest of the world can do (and takes for granted). Like working, exercising, parenting, speaking and using the toilet. The curse of MS even excludes, for some, being able to use things like smartphones. Imagine having a disease that makes it impossible for you to use your Android or your iPad. Not being dramatic here.

This is why we need a cure: otherwise lovely, vibrant people with dreams and hopes and goals just like everyone else are literally enduring the slow shredding of their nervous system under attack by an immune system "gone wild." The frustration of watching one bodily system after another begin to do bizarre things ("word salad," anybody?) or slowly fail (everyone's favorite, incontinence... try walking that treadmill in the gym with this always in the back of your mind) simply cannot be appreciated unless you are one of the unfortunate ones who deals with this every minute of every day of their lives.

While many major illnesses like diabetes and heart disease--in some cases, even cancer--can be shown to originate in poor lifestyle habits (sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, drinking or drugs or smoking, for instance), MS does not happen to someone because they made bad choices. Perfectly healthy people with good lifestyle habits still come down with this devil of a disease. The need for research money is critical to finding a cure; studies require funding, lots of time, and lots of willing participants to make the possibility of curing MS a reality.

|| If you'd like to read a book about the current approaches to MS, you might want to try Curing MS: How Science is Solving the Mysteries of Multiple Sclerosis by HL Weiner (2007). ||

Below I've posted some links to recent news to show you what kind of headway researchers are making. It seems we are so close to a cure, and yet so far away. If you are putting together some New Year's resolutions this year, please consider donating to the cause of curing MS. MS is no longer a rare little disorder that somebody else gets; more than 2.1 million people suffer from this lifelong chronic neurological disease and without a cure, we won't be able to prevent it either.

Let me be frank: MS sufferers and their loved ones are hit up ALL THE TIME for money for a cure. Many of them cannot afford the expensive medications. Costs measure on the order of $55K annually for just one disease modifying medication; this doesn't even begin to cover the other meds MS sufferers need for pain management, alleviation of muscle spasticity and defense against debilitating fatigue, as well as for assuaging the discomfort of unpleasant side effects like flushing or flu-like symptoms or chronic diarrhea.

If you're a reasonably healthy person, it can be hard to imagine what it's like to have to take handfuls (or needlefuls) of medications every day just to function quasi-normally (in order to do something like go to work in order to just pay the bills). If you can spare some change to help support the search for a cure, please do so by clicking on one or more of the links below (and thank you).