Mark Auld: Raising profile vital in ongoing fight against MS

Published on Tuesday 28 April 2009 09:14

LIVING with MS is a feat in itself. When I was finally diagnosed it took me a while to reappraise my life and for me to question ways in which I could contribute to an illness which affects almost 85,000 people in the UK.

Short of shouting from the rooftops I wasn't quite sure what, but MS Awareness Week this week is a chance to take stock of where we're at and reflect on what is still to be done to find a cure for an illness which affects Scotland more than any other country in the world.

No-one suffers from this illness in the same way. For me, the first signs were the stumble on the way home – and not because I had been in the pub. Then there was the struggle to button a shirt.

Months went by before a diagnosis but four years ago an MRI scan finally confirmed what was wrong with me. The diagnosis of MS changed my life and the challenges I set myself. I have found, though, that as one door closes another opens.

A vast array of global research hasn't developed a cure for MS . . . yet, but huge hopes rest on the new Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine (SCRM) at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

The illness is a disease of the central nervous system. Your immune system turns in on itself and confuses the myelin – the fatty substance that surrounds nerve fibres – as alien and attacks them, causing them to become inflamed with scars.

A pedometer has become permanently strapped to my waist as I try to walk a lot. I go for physiotherapy and spend an hour in Edinburgh MS Therapy Centre's Hyperbaric Oxygen tank. I, like so many other MS sufferers find it helps. It is called "a dive" but you don't see an inch of water. It gets its name from a treatment for divers suffering the bends.

This week is so important to raise understanding. After 18 months of agony of not knowing what was wrong with me I remain upbeat and hold on to the belief that we are close, like never before, to finding a cure for an illness which blights so many lives across the world.

Mark Auld is a 34-year-old freelance journalist who has had MS for four years