Getting to know relapses

Maria shares how MS relapses can cause walking difficulties and come as a major disruption to daily life. Highlighting how she has learnt to recognise early warning signs, identify personal triggers such as stress, and use reflection and journaling to better manage their MS and live well. 

Personally, I find relapses hugely inconvenient, distressing, upsetting and debilitating. It impacts every aspect of my life and sadly, when a relapse starts, my world no longer feels safe as I know it. I experience extreme fatigue with a relapse; it hits me like a snowball.  

My walking is affected hugely with every relapse I have experienced. I struggle to put one foot in front of the other which means I am unable to do much.  

Luckily, I can easily identify when I am going into a relapse. For me, my body starts to shut down, quite literally. It begins in my feet with pins and needles and then, within a couple of days they go completely numb. This numbness then prevents me from living life as I usually would.

At the time of writing this blog I am currently coming out of an MS relapse, so this feels very fresh and personal to me. 

In my lived experience with MS, it becomes far more predictable when you become more aware. By understanding both your body and MS, this will help you to establish exactly what you need to stop or continue to try to live well with MS.  

Relapses have often led me to feel annoyed, distressed and inconvenienced. However, because of these feelings, I have tried to understand my triggers to a relapse which has helped to reduce those feelings of uncertainty.  

As every person's experience of MS is unique, so are people’s experiences of relapses. This makes it even more important to truly understand how you can live your life well alongside MS.  

I set it upon myself to discover what triggers relapses within me so that I can try to avoid these things. I wish I had been told earlier about the importance of establishing the personal stressors to MS.  

Personally, a relapse can be caused when I am placing more attention on other people and their needs rather than prioritising on myself to ensure my health is protected. Although this was a difficult lesson to learn, it was needed to help me live well. Ignoring my own needs does not help MS, it seems to create the perfect storm to kick off a relapse.  

In my experience, Vitamin D plays a hugely important role, as people with MS often have lower levels of this vitamin. Since taking Vitamin D supplements to help address this deficiency, I have noticed a positive effect on my overall health. 

When experiencing a relapse, it is the ideal opportunity to do a life audit, to help you understand what helps you to live better and what is not so good for you. By figuring out these things, it can help you to reorganise your life in a way that helps you to live well with MS.  

Every time I come out of a relapse, it is filled with more learnings which I try to put in place for the future. To keep track of this all, I often journal.  

My main concern about relapses is not learning anything, I am constantly looking for learnings to help me live my life to the fullest. MS Trust’s Instagram is very informative and helps me to continue my learnings about MS.

• Vitamin D - Learn more about this vitamin.