UnTouchableMultiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis affects the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms vary widely and can include extreme tiredness, problems with vision or balance, numbness or tingling, muscle stiffness or spasms, trouble with bladder control, and difficulties with thinking or memory. There are three main types: relapsing remitting, where symptoms flare and then settle; secondary progressive; and primary progressive, which worsens gradually without remission. It usually starts between 20 and 50 and is more common in women. There is currently no cure, but treatment often helps — disease-modifying therapies to reduce relapses, steroids, muscle relaxants and pain relief, alongside physiotherapy and other support.
This is a plain summary, not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for talking to your GP or your clinical team. For NHS information about multiple sclerosis, speak to your GP or call NHS 111.
People who have talked about it
1 story, each one written in our own words from what the person said publicly themselves.
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate on living with MS, and the night a room stood up
Speaking to Robin Roberts at length for the first time about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, Christina Applegate did not soften it. She said she lives kind of in hell, and that she is not out much, so even doing the interview was difficult for her system. She talked about presenting at the Emmys, and the standing ovation that met her. She said she more or less blacked out — people told her afterwards she had been funny and she had no memory of what she said or did, because she got so overwhelmed she no longer knew what was happening. She said she felt beloved, and that it was a beautiful thing. Her humour was intact: she told the room they were shaming her with her disability by standing up, and then added that the audience had stood for everybody. She appeared alongside a friend who has lived with MS for far longer than she has, and the two of them, at different stages of the same disease, support each other. Nothing here is medical advice.
Photographs, in order: Christina Applegate by Gage Skidmore (CC BY 2.0).