For more posts about Multiple Sclerosis, please click on:

https://thefasteryoupedal.wordpress.com/category/ms

In April of 2011, Mike was riding his bike through Cloudcroft, when he started to see a dark spot in the center of his eye.  Brushing it off as a something in his eye, he went a few days hoping it would get better.  The spot started getting bigger and bigger so he decided to go see an eye doctor about it.

He was later diagnosed with having optic neuritis, which is a symptom of Multiple Sclerosis.  Multiple Sclerosis is a disease in which your immune system attacks the nerves, mainly in the brain.  It is unknown the cause of the disease, but statistically it is becoming more common. Every week 200 people are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and almost every year 20-50,000 more people are diagnosed.  It mainly affects people between the ages of 30-35, but can be seen in younger and older crowds too. Here is an article on the top ten things to know about MS:

http://www.everydayhealth.com/multiple-sclerosis/facts-you-should-know-about-multiple-sclerosis.aspx

Mike was able to get steroid treatments (not the good kind) through infusion therapy at the hospital and was able to regain most of his eyesight in his left eye.  His doctor recommended that he research types of medication to take and we decided to go with Copaxone, which is a daily injection shot.

In April of 2013, Mike had another flare up of MS.  This time he lost feeling in his face, which meant a new lesion was forming in his brain.  Again, he went into infusion therapy and took pills to treat the symptoms and to reduce the swelling of the lesion.

We are deciding to switch medicines with newer, updated medicine to see if that will help with the flare ups.  Mike continues to exercise daily and eat healthy to help keep his MS from keeping him down.