“Dr. Macaluso has written the Iliad and the Odyssey of multiple sclerosis while playing the part of Odysseus. Amazing!” Carlo Tornatore, MD, Vice Chairman, Department of Neurology Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC Vincent F. Macaluso was in medical school when he got the news: he had multiple sclerosis. He soon learned that almost a half million people in the United States have multiple sclerosis—and millions more worldwide. Many have obvious symptoms, such as trouble with walking, balance, and coordination, but the most insidious aspect of the disease is how it affects the mind. Macaluso shares insights from his vantage point as a doctor and an MS patient, helping his peers understand symptoms they may not grasp and offering wisdom for those who live with the disease. Learn how to • anticipate and overcome problems concentrating; • manage swirling emotions; • understand MS from a neurological standpoint; • preserve and continue to enjoy an active sex life; and • prevent the disease from ruining family life. Laced with humor and filled with diagrams and the author’s own recollections about how he’s kept MS from controlling his life, this account is essential reading for doctors, patients, and anyone who has an MSer in his or her life.

An MS diagnosis presents many unanswered questions: How is this diagnosis going to change my life? Where do I begin? How will I manage to take care of my family, work, and travel? No one knows the answers to these questions better than Shelley Peterman Schwarz, who has lived nearly forty years with multiple sclerosis. Schwarz imbues her updated collection of practical tips and short cuts with personal stories that highlight her trials and triumphs. Shelley shares her real-life experiences as a wife, mother, friend, and employee/employer coping, managing, and growing with MS with a humorous warmth and unflinching honesty. This extensively revised and updated third edition is packed with helpful information and now includes over 800 tips and new solutions and strategies for confronting the challenges of living a full life with a debilitating chronic illness. With Shelley’s guidance, readers will learn to conserve valuable time and energy, develop techniques for making everyday tasks easier, manage symptoms, maintain positive relationships, stay motivated, and bounce back when MS knocks you down. Expanded chapters cover medical issues, home safety and accessibility, dressing and looking your best, and travel. NEW sections include: A Thriver’s Guide Taking Charge Mentally and Physically Family and Friends Marriage Sexual Compatibility and Intimacy Being a Parent Driving and Disability Working Finding Help and Support With hundreds of new tips and tools, and practical wisdom for meeting challenges large and small, this book continues to inform, encourage, validate, and empower individuals and families living with multiple sclerosis.

MS Madness will make you laugh while learning the real story of what MS, a disease that affects 400,000 Americans daily, can do to a perfectly normal person. Life with multiple sclerosis can be daunting, but Yvonne shares her giggles at the bizarre world she has unwittingly entered and the new perspectives it has given her on life.

Renae Clare has lived with the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis including paralysis, depression and fatigue for over 40 years. This deeply personal account, Potty Mouth, was written as a series of essays after each of her psychotherapy sessions. Her therapist, Dr Cinzia LeValds recommended putting them all together into book form feeling that Renae's completely open and brutally honest voice would help a great many people. She has dealt with abuse, with aging, with disability, and with loss. Renae's wickedly profane sense of humor shows her optimistic spirit shining through even under the most depressing and difficult times. This book is gut wrenchingly truthful and yet, at times it is laugh out loud funny. It was written for the purpose of healing and forgiving Renae Clare's past and as such there are many things in Potty Mouth that she had never spoken of before beginning therapy. It is written with the thought of helping not only herself but others to find the inner strength and inner peace needed to get through the obstacles that she has come up against over time. Although she has MS her optimism shines through and she is an inspiration to everyone she meets. Potty Mouth also includes practical guides to finding help for disabled people and how to keep and restore self-confidence and self worth. Renae Clare's book hides nothing.

I finished my first book, Multiple Sclerosis: A Blessing in Disguise, around the end of 1998. At that time, I was going through a lot of issues that I thought were very important to me. That book told of my discovery, my eventual acceptance of the illness, and how I dealt with what was happening to me. Like anybody else who is faced with the burden of discovery, I had a lot of questions that I felt I really needed to answer, but I never sought to answer why this had happened to me. As I now have had this illness for thirty years, this is what I honestly believe is the "cause and effect" of having this illness in my life. I have realized that what I had been holding onto various memories ultimately caused my stress, if not added to it. This book will be different from my first book in that it has taken me thirty years to finally admit and actually realize what I feel was my "cause and effect" to being stricken by this illness into my life. Gone are the people that affected my life in such a negative way that I can see it now for what it was. I realize now that I need to "cleanse my soul" (so to speak) and share what I have has happened to me. Many people in my inner circle at that time would not believe me if I'd spoken the truth back then. For years, I've carried around this burden, my burden, and now it's time that it passes and leaves my conscious and subconscious mind once and for all. Once again, everything I say here is honest and truthful to the best of my ability. As I think you will see, I had an unbelievable amount of stress that for a while I was able to fend off, but in the end, I feel it caused a lot of issues for me. Each person may have a different level of stress that they can absorb, but if you ask anyone who has multiple sclerosis, they will tell you that the prolonged stress that they were under at that particular moment was the reason why it surfaced. Read this book and see if I am correct. Finally, I realized I was no different.

This reference presents cutting-edge basic and clinical research on all forms of interferon (IFN) involvement in the management of multiple sclerosis (MS)-detailing topics from IFN-receptor molecular interactions to synergy and interference with other agents such as cytotoxic drugs and chemotherapy. Features detailed research findings on IFN-1a (