Multiple Sclerosis with Yvette - Australia & New Zealand

So people often see the visible parts of MS, as you said, if somebody's in a wheelchair or, um- ... visually deeply affected.

But what are some of the hidden battles that people with MS may be dealing with on a day-to-day basis?

You know, if I've heard it once, I've heard it a million times that I don't look like I've got MS, and I often wonder how I'm failing and what I should look like.

Yeah.

But I experience all the really common symptoms.

So I live with heat fatigue.

Um, yesterday was a good example.

I was, I was doing a talk to a group of parents, and I just was just awash with sweat just pouring off me.

And that's then my body needs to rest and sit down, and I've got no control over that.

I also get, um, loss of sensation in all sorts of parts of my body, so I'll lose, uh, feeling in my fingertips or feeling in the soles of my feet.

And then I'll also gain feelings that aren't real.

So I might feel like my arm's been burned with boiling water.

I can tell you exactly what that feels like even though it's never happened.

And my brain is interpreting other sensations and trying to put a picture together based on prior experience.

So you get all these random things.

Um, the other day, I just got this buzzing all down my arm.

There was nothing there, but my brain thinks something's happening.

So there's all these sensory things.

I've lost the ability to taste.

I've lost feeling on one side of my face.

Um, it doesn't affect the function, so it's different to, say, stroke, where, where, um, you know, the face will droop.

But I'll have no sensation on one side of my face.

Okay.

And that might last for six weeks or so and then goes away, and yet I look fine.

I am a chronic fainter, um-