Living with multiple sclerosis during a pandemic: ‘If anybody should take coronavirus seriously, it’s this group’
March is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month. Read more personal stories about people living with the autoimmune disease on Yahoo Lifestyle.
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic and usually progressive autoimmune disease that damages the sheaths of the nerve cells in a person’s brain and spinal cord, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. People with MS can have symptoms that include difficulty with balance, trouble walking, involuntary muscle spasms, fatigue, numbness and tingling, weakness, pain, cognitive changes and bladder and bowel issues.
MS patients feel like they’re being easily dismissed.“The other day, I watched the mayor of New York saying, as a calming tool, ‘Remember, if you’re not that small percent that’s considered high risk, you’re fine,’” Heather Millen, a 42-year-old mother of two living in Brooklyn, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I feel like people with MS and other people who are high risk are constantly being dismissed.
Espinal points out that someone can carry the virus for up to two weeks before they exhibit symptoms, which is concerning for him and others. “A person can be traveling around, looking all healthy while giving others the virus without knowing,” he explains. “This is why it is very contagious and needs to be taken seriously.”
Julie Fiol, the director of MS Information and Resources at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the organization makes similar recommendations about the flu. “The risk of contracting such a virus is no different than it was in previous years, and people with MS on these [disease-modifying] therapies have developed excellent strategies to mitigate their chances of catching common viruses,” she says.
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