A few months ago we invited one of our readers to write a guest blog about the usage of marijuana or cannabis for medical purposes here.

Since then medical marijuana has been regularly discussed on our multiple sclerosis group and our rheumatoid arthritis group.

In the UK in recent months the debate has once again changed. The Sentencing Council has issued guidelines that usage of cannabis by those diagnosed with a medical condition to help that condition should not incur a prison sentence. Click here for more

 

We have been asked by the UK’s  MS Society to publish this guest multiple sclerosis blog introducing MS Life.  Please use the comments to asks any questions you may have of the MS Society and we will ask them to respond.

The MS Society has announced that Manchester is to host its flagship national event, MS Life – Europe’s largest event of its kind – for the third time when it returns to the city from 14th-15th April.

The free two-day lifestyle event will take place at Manchester Central and is aimed at everyone affected by multiple sclerosis (MS), whether personally or professionally.Click here for more

 

MS is a devastating set of symptoms that destroy the lives of sufferers and their family. The number of people affected by these symptoms is not known, there is an estimated figure of about 85,000 in the UK but early results of a survey undertaken under the freedom of information act suggest this might be half of the true number of 160,000. We are actively contacting MPs, MSPs and Health Ministers for help in getting at the accurate figures that would tell us the extent of the problem the country is facing.

Problems resulting from inaccurate figures:

  • This is a problem for services providers and resources.

Click here for more

 

Shift.ms has very graciously allowed The Patient Experience to republish their resent video on Vitamin D.  Ram, a postdoctoral research fellow at Barts and London in the UK, talks about the general value of Vitamin D and more specifically for multiple sclerosis.

Watch the video here.

It would be great if you could use the comments section to give your views on Vitamin D or links to any useful information! Click here for more

 

It is a little known but interesting fact that many people with chronic conditions such as multiple sclerosis using poetry to explore and express their feelings about the disease.

Mel Penman has very graciously given us permission to publish one of her multiple sclerosis poems on the blog.  It would be great if you could use the comments section to let us know how well you feel Mel has managed to capture life with MS. Please feel free to add your own poems in the comments or even links to any MS related art works.Click here for more

 

During the weekend of 14th and 15th January 2012 an interesting discussion was started on our FaceBook Multiple Sclerosis page.

The discussion attracted massive interest and we thought it would be interesting to extend this conversation to the wider MS community.

The conversation was kick started by Mindy who asked “Has anyone done genetic testing for their MS? Was it worth it?”.  This itself lead to an interesting conversation so we then posted a follow up question “How many people have a relative with MS?”. Click here for more

 

When we asked our readers in early 2012 what subjects they wished us to cover in 2012 one of the top areas mentioned was the relationship between CCSVI, angioplasty and multiple sclerosis.

For some background on this highly controversial area please see our initial article – “Multiple sclerosis, CCSVI and Balloon angioplasty”.

Since this article was publish last year a lot of research has been conducted regarding multiple sclerosis and CCSVI.  Please watch the video below of Professor Robert Zivadinov of the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences telling us about the links between MS and CCSVI. Click here for more

 

I don’t often blog about politics, but some things are too important for me to ignore.

The Welfare Reform Bill is currently making it’s way through the UK Parliament. There are very many things wrong with this Bill, but I’ll concentrate here on some of those affecting people with disabilities.

If you’re unable to work due to sickness or disability, you get Employment or Support Allowance. (People on the previous benefit, Incapacity Benefit, are gradually being migrated over.) There are two types of ESA – one depending on your National Insurance contributions, and one depending on your income.Click here for more

 

The Patient Experience are helping the MS Trust find people to participate in a very short survey about people with MS and their working lives.

The survey is intended to help the MS Trust understand what people with multiple sclerosis need to know about working and what issues they have faced and with the answers you give us, we can in turn give people with MS information they need.

So if you’ve got MS please take the survey Click here for more

 

“I’ve often spoken before about vitamin D and MS. It’s a very important area of research at the moment. Now a group of British and Canadian researchers have discovered a rare gene that seems to be linked to MS. The gene is called CYP27B1: a mutation in it affects a key enzyme, leading people with the variant to have lower levels of vitamin D.

They identified the mutation in CYP27B1 as being of interest, from looking at 43 people who came from families with 4 or more individuals affected by MS. Then they looked at over 3,000 unaffected parents of someone with MS. Click here for more

© 2012 The Patient Experience Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha
Follow

Get every new post on this blog delivered to your Inbox.

Join other followers: