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Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me

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  • Home
  • About [updated]
  • History of MS
  • A to Z of MS
  • MS Explained
    • Why Multiple Sclerosis Is So Difficult to Diagnose
    • What is MS?
    • The Effects of Multiple Sclerosis on Your Body
    • How MS Affects Brain Cells
    • What causes MS?
    • Types of MS
    • Updated McDonald Criteria (2017)
    • Immune System
      • What is an immune-mediated disease?
      • BiteSized Immunology
    • Central Nervous System
    • CNS (videos)
  • MS Symptoms
    • Early signs of MS
    • 16 Early Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis
    • MS & Sleep
    • Cognition
    • Multiple Sclerosis and Memory Loss
    • Sensory Symptoms
    • Pain, the basic facts
    • What is pain & how do you rate it?
    • Trigeminal Neuralgia
      • Detailed Trigeminal Neuralgia info
      • Trigeminal Neuralgia Infochart
      • Trigeminal Neuralgia – MedlinePlus
      • Understanding Trigeminal Neuralgia
    • Emotional changes in people with MS
      • MS and Mental Health: Depression, Anxiety and Pseudobulbar Affect (Johns Hopkins)
    • What if it’s not MS
      • Do I Have Multiple Sclerosis or Another Disease?
      • The difference between fibromyalgia and MS
      • The difference between ALS and MS
    • Reading Healthcare: A Medical Terminology Study Guide for Patients, Students and Professionals
  • Managing MS
    • Symptom Management
    • What is an MS relapse?
      • Managing Relapses (US National MS Society)
      • Managing Relapses (MS Trust)
    • Managing MS fatigue
      • The Spoon Theory
    • Pain management
    • Preparing for your neurologist appointment
    • Here’s What to Ask Your Doctor About Multiple Sclerosis
    • A Look at Your Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Plan
    • 40 Self-care strategies
  • MS Treatments
    • Medications List
    • Alternative Treatments
      • Healthy eating
      • Vitamins, Minerals, and Herbs in MS
      • Vitamin D info
      • Vitamins, supplements & MS: research
      • Complementary Health Approaches for MS
      • Complementary & Alternative Medicines
      • Medical Marijuana
      • Evidence-based guideline: Complementary and alternative medicine in MS
  • Research & Clinical Trials
    • Current clinical trials – Ireland
    • Current clinical trials – UK
    • Current clinical trials – globally
    • Understanding clinical trials
    • How Do New Medicines Get Approved?
    • Latest Research
    • RESEARCH NEWS – MS IRELAND
    • Research eZine, by MS Ireland
  • Health Organisations – Ireland
  • To update 2025 – Mental Health Ireland
  • Useful Resources
    • MS Societies around the World
    • Disability websites
    • General websites
    • Medical Websites
    • MS Organisations
    • Neurology (Research)
  • My Journey
    • General
      • Media, stop calling it a cure when it’s not even clinically trialled yet!
      • Oh, media, when will you ever learn? Stop calling it a cure!
    • Newly diagnosed
      • Blurred notes to self
      • The first day
      • It’s OK not to be OK
      • I am not my brain
      • Making sense of MS
      • The road to diagnosis
    • Disease-Modifying Treatments
      • 3443 Needles
      • Starting over
      • Injecting object
      • What a difference a needle makes
    • Living with Trigeminal Neuralgia
      • No-wrinkle multiple sclerosis
      • Where is my left cheek?!
      • The five-second MS rant
      • Not my face!
      • No end to trigeminal neuralgia
      • I’m an ex and I’m lovin’ it!
      • Why I love advocacy!
      • 10 years: a lot to be thankful for
      • How (not to) be sick!
      • A future without chronic illness
      • Medical terminology?
      • MRI scans, hope or defeat
      • The MS blame game
      • MS: a social disconnect
      • Then & now
      • What we refuse to discuss
      • What you might not be aware of
    • Fatigue
      • The truth about Cinderella
      • Sleep: a time-consuming commodity
      • Time to recharge
      • Tiredness ≠ fatigue
    • Emotional Health
      • MS and PTSD: not all in your head
      • Body image and MS: how many selfies do you have?
      • Happiness and MS
      • Things that make you love and hate MS resolutions
      • Bliss, the MS-way
      • Depression?
      • I don’t miss myself
      • I’m only human
      • Mortality
      • Peak moments!
      • Resilience
      • Magnetic voices
    • Hyperacusis | Sound sensitivity | Noise sensitivity
      • Noise sensitivity in MS: Turn off your voice!
      • When life with MS is like The Clash’s ‘Should I stay or should I go’
    • That ignorance!
      • MS Anxiety
      • Defined by myself
      • Dissecting words
      • Ignorance
      • Pull up your big girl panties!
    • Optimism
      • The duality of MS
      • I am not my brain
      • You will survive!
      • What singing taught me about life with MS
      • Branded!
      • Do I have stupid written on my forehead?
      • Fake it ’til you make it!
      • Giving up is not an option
      • How far do baby germs fly?
      • Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
      • Life’s meant to be…
      • The day I stopped being weak
      • Man up!
      • Now what?!
      • Paper dreams
      • Waiting
      • What about it?
      • Why I should be a brainiac, but I’m not
      • You will survive!
    • Relationships/Friendships
      • Body image and MS, fake or not
      • Hell is other people
      • MS and single on Valentine’s Day?
      • MS + single on Valentine’s Day?
      • Kids? Not right now, please…
      • Philosophy of Friendship
      • Single life!
    • MS Relapses / Flare-ups
      • Game, set, relapse!
      • Relapse!
      • Relentless relapse
    • Heat sensitivity / Uhthoff’s Symptoms
      • About Vikings, Vitamin D and multiple sclerosis!
      • Heat sensitivity and MS?
      • Too hot for you? Heat sensitivity explained!
      • The duplicity of MS
      • Every leaf speaks bliss to me
      • Hot town!
      • That thing people call ‘summer’
    • Other symptoms
      • Sensory MS symptoms: The hair that isn’t there
      • You retired at age what?
      • Mental or physical, your choice
      • Silver Linings
      • The social swing of life
      • Jammed filter!
      • Wheelchair?
    • Optic Neuritis
      • Eyes of sorrow
      • Fourteen MS years and counting
    • Ireland
      • Paper dreams
      • The Celtic Tree of Life… sort of!
      • Why Ireland?
      • Ireland, a love story
      • Dublin: a state of mind
      • Back to Ireland
      • Photography
        • Famine
        • Caged
        • An Irish General… and me
        • Irish Selfie
  • Top Posts
  • 🎀 3443 Needles (Winner Ireland Blog Awards 2018) 🎀
  • Blog Awards
  • MS Trust DMT Decisions Aid
  • [NEW] 45 Best Multiple Sclerosis Blogs and Websites in 2025
  • [NEW] Your Everyday Guide To Living Well With Multiple Sclerosis
  • [NEW] 7 Common Complications of MS
  • [NEW] What’s New in MS Research in 2025
  • Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • About [updated]
  • History of MS
  • A to Z of MS
  • MS Explained
    • Why Multiple Sclerosis Is So Difficult to Diagnose
    • What is MS?
    • The Effects of Multiple Sclerosis on Your Body
    • How MS Affects Brain Cells
    • What causes MS?
    • Types of MS
    • Updated McDonald Criteria (2017)
    • Immune System
      • What is an immune-mediated disease?
      • BiteSized Immunology
    • Central Nervous System
    • CNS (videos)
  • MS Symptoms
    • Early signs of MS
    • 16 Early Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis
    • MS & Sleep
    • Cognition
    • Multiple Sclerosis and Memory Loss
    • Sensory Symptoms
    • Pain, the basic facts
    • What is pain & how do you rate it?
    • Trigeminal Neuralgia
      • Detailed Trigeminal Neuralgia info
      • Trigeminal Neuralgia Infochart
      • Trigeminal Neuralgia – MedlinePlus
      • Understanding Trigeminal Neuralgia
    • Emotional changes in people with MS
      • MS and Mental Health: Depression, Anxiety and Pseudobulbar Affect (Johns Hopkins)
    • What if it’s not MS
      • Do I Have Multiple Sclerosis or Another Disease?
      • The difference between fibromyalgia and MS
      • The difference between ALS and MS
    • Reading Healthcare: A Medical Terminology Study Guide for Patients, Students and Professionals
  • Managing MS
    • Symptom Management
    • What is an MS relapse?
      • Managing Relapses (US National MS Society)
      • Managing Relapses (MS Trust)
    • Managing MS fatigue
      • The Spoon Theory
    • Pain management
    • Preparing for your neurologist appointment
    • Here’s What to Ask Your Doctor About Multiple Sclerosis
    • A Look at Your Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Plan
    • 40 Self-care strategies
  • MS Treatments
    • Medications List
    • Alternative Treatments
      • Healthy eating
      • Vitamins, Minerals, and Herbs in MS
      • Vitamin D info
      • Vitamins, supplements & MS: research
      • Complementary Health Approaches for MS
      • Complementary & Alternative Medicines
      • Medical Marijuana
      • Evidence-based guideline: Complementary and alternative medicine in MS
  • Research & Clinical Trials
    • Current clinical trials – Ireland
    • Current clinical trials – UK
    • Current clinical trials – globally
    • Understanding clinical trials
    • How Do New Medicines Get Approved?
    • Latest Research
    • RESEARCH NEWS – MS IRELAND
    • Research eZine, by MS Ireland
  • Health Organisations – Ireland
  • To update 2025 – Mental Health Ireland
  • Useful Resources
    • MS Societies around the World
    • Disability websites
    • General websites
    • Medical Websites
    • MS Organisations
    • Neurology (Research)
  • My Journey
    • General
      • Media, stop calling it a cure when it’s not even clinically trialled yet!
      • Oh, media, when will you ever learn? Stop calling it a cure!
    • Newly diagnosed
      • Blurred notes to self
      • The first day
      • It’s OK not to be OK
      • I am not my brain
      • Making sense of MS
      • The road to diagnosis
    • Disease-Modifying Treatments
      • 3443 Needles
      • Starting over
      • Injecting object
      • What a difference a needle makes
    • Living with Trigeminal Neuralgia
      • No-wrinkle multiple sclerosis
      • Where is my left cheek?!
      • The five-second MS rant
      • Not my face!
      • No end to trigeminal neuralgia
      • I’m an ex and I’m lovin’ it!
      • Why I love advocacy!
      • 10 years: a lot to be thankful for
      • How (not to) be sick!
      • A future without chronic illness
      • Medical terminology?
      • MRI scans, hope or defeat
      • The MS blame game
      • MS: a social disconnect
      • Then & now
      • What we refuse to discuss
      • What you might not be aware of
    • Fatigue
      • The truth about Cinderella
      • Sleep: a time-consuming commodity
      • Time to recharge
      • Tiredness ≠ fatigue
    • Emotional Health
      • MS and PTSD: not all in your head
      • Body image and MS: how many selfies do you have?
      • Happiness and MS
      • Things that make you love and hate MS resolutions
      • Bliss, the MS-way
      • Depression?
      • I don’t miss myself
      • I’m only human
      • Mortality
      • Peak moments!
      • Resilience
      • Magnetic voices
    • Hyperacusis | Sound sensitivity | Noise sensitivity
      • Noise sensitivity in MS: Turn off your voice!
      • When life with MS is like The Clash’s ‘Should I stay or should I go’
    • That ignorance!
      • MS Anxiety
      • Defined by myself
      • Dissecting words
      • Ignorance
      • Pull up your big girl panties!
    • Optimism
      • The duality of MS
      • I am not my brain
      • You will survive!
      • What singing taught me about life with MS
      • Branded!
      • Do I have stupid written on my forehead?
      • Fake it ’til you make it!
      • Giving up is not an option
      • How far do baby germs fly?
      • Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
      • Life’s meant to be…
      • The day I stopped being weak
      • Man up!
      • Now what?!
      • Paper dreams
      • Waiting
      • What about it?
      • Why I should be a brainiac, but I’m not
      • You will survive!
    • Relationships/Friendships
      • Body image and MS, fake or not
      • Hell is other people
      • MS and single on Valentine’s Day?
      • MS + single on Valentine’s Day?
      • Kids? Not right now, please…
      • Philosophy of Friendship
      • Single life!
    • MS Relapses / Flare-ups
      • Game, set, relapse!
      • Relapse!
      • Relentless relapse
    • Heat sensitivity / Uhthoff’s Symptoms
      • About Vikings, Vitamin D and multiple sclerosis!
      • Heat sensitivity and MS?
      • Too hot for you? Heat sensitivity explained!
      • The duplicity of MS
      • Every leaf speaks bliss to me
      • Hot town!
      • That thing people call ‘summer’
    • Other symptoms
      • Sensory MS symptoms: The hair that isn’t there
      • You retired at age what?
      • Mental or physical, your choice
      • Silver Linings
      • The social swing of life
      • Jammed filter!
      • Wheelchair?
    • Optic Neuritis
      • Eyes of sorrow
      • Fourteen MS years and counting
    • Ireland
      • Paper dreams
      • The Celtic Tree of Life… sort of!
      • Why Ireland?
      • Ireland, a love story
      • Dublin: a state of mind
      • Back to Ireland
      • Photography
        • Famine
        • Caged
        • An Irish General… and me
        • Irish Selfie
  • Top Posts
  • 🎀 3443 Needles (Winner Ireland Blog Awards 2018) 🎀
  • Blog Awards
  • MS Trust DMT Decisions Aid
  • [NEW] 45 Best Multiple Sclerosis Blogs and Websites in 2025
  • [NEW] Your Everyday Guide To Living Well With Multiple Sclerosis
  • [NEW] 7 Common Complications of MS
  • [NEW] What’s New in MS Research in 2025
  • Privacy Policy
  • Broere - IMSM
    Family,  Health,  Multiple Sclerosis,  Resources

    You would have been 50 today

    2 December 2021 / 2 Comments

    It would have been a god-damn extraordinary 50 years if your heart and mind had been allowed to live.

    Continue reading
  • Family COVID-19
    Advocacy,  Coronavirus,  COVID-19,  Multiple Sclerosis,  Resources

    Non-immunosuppressive people with MS in Ireland not allowed early COVID-19 vaccination?

    22 March 2021 / 4 Comments

    Disease-modifying treatments try to calm down the inflammation that causes MS by interacting with different parts of the immune system. In other words, immunomodulation is at play. Not being on immunosuppressant treatment for MS therefore does not mean a full or partial absence of MS, and its divide is smaller than its difference as everyone with MS is immune-mediated, regardless of which treatment they are on.

    Continue reading
  • Vintage clock
    Health,  Multiple Sclerosis,  Recommended,  Relationships,  Resources

    The Paradox of Our Time

    17 January 2021 / No Comments

    We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life, we've added years to life not life to years.

    Continue reading
  • Coronavirus,  COVID-19,  Mental Health,  Multiple Sclerosis

    COVID-19: MS; Children; Mental health Resources

    16 November 2020 / No Comments

    Fear and anxiety about COVID-19 can take an emotional toll. If you worry about what could happen, it can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children and make people feel isolated and lonely. However, you are not powerless. Coping with stress in a healthy way can help you get through this difficult time and will make you, the people you care about, and your community stronger.

    Continue reading
  • Coronavirus,  COVID-19,  Multiple Sclerosis

    COVID-19: Will there be Christmas?

    15 November 2020 / No Comments

    So, there is nothing wrong with being heartbroken because you can't spend Christmas with your family, but by staying away, you show them how much you love them. You don't want to risk their wellbeing because you rather want to have them around for a good while longer.

    Continue reading
  • Coronavirus,  COVID-19,  Multiple Sclerosis,  Resources

    [UPDATED] COVID-19 resources

    1 October 2020 / No Comments

    Resources include: travel info; recovery from COVID-19; helping children cope; información general sobre COVID-19 en español; global vaccine and virus trackers

    Continue reading
  • Coronavirus
    Coronavirus,  COVID-19,  Health,  News Stories,  Resources

    Differences between COVID-19, the flu and a cold

    22 September 2020 / No Comments

    What is COVID-19? Or a flu or cold? What are the differences?

    Continue reading
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What? Why?

IMSM is an award-winning blog filled with personal experiences and general information about MS to fill the gap left by websites crowded with medical jargon.

Now 22 years in Ireland and 20 years post-diagnosis, my goal is to connect people who like me, found themselves in front of MS’s door, and were dragged in for an extended stay in one of its uncomfortable, dark-lit backrooms. Hopefully, we will connect somehow to share its burden and be an inspiration to each other. After all, IMSM was created to do just that: trying to make sense of MS nonsense.

© Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis and Me, 2025

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