LifeWithMS

🧠 Symptoms of MS: The Obvious Greatest Hits

Tired for No Reason You slept 12 hours, drank 3 coffees, and you're still knackered. Congratulations, it’s not laziness — it’s fatigue. Chronic, soul-sucking, "please let me nap in the cereal aisle" fatigue.

Wobbly Walking Walking like you’ve had 8 pints… at 9am… while stone-cold sober. Balance issues, because apparently your legs didn’t get the memo from your brain.

Blurry or Double Vision Your eyes play ‘spot the difference’ with reality. One of them’s lying, and neither has a clue what they’re doing.

Numbness or Tingling That fun pins-and-needles feeling. Except it’s not from sitting funny — it’s from your brain throwing a tantrum.

Weakness Arms, legs, or both suddenly feeling like cooked spaghetti. Good luck opening jars. Or standing. Or functioning.

Slurred Speech You sound like you’re drunk, even if you’re painfully sober and just trying to ask for a biscuit. Bathroom Betrayal Bladder and bowels doing their own thing. Urgency, accidents, or the joy of constipation that could turn coal into diamonds.

Mood Swings Crying because the teabag split. Laughing maniacally at absolutely nothing. Just another Tuesday with your brain on shuffle.

🎩 The Lesser-Known (But Equally Rubbish) MS Delights

Electric Shock Sensation (Lhermitte’s Sign) You tilt your head and BAM — your spine thinks it’s been struck by lightning. For no reason. Because why not?

Itching Like You're Infested with Ghost Fleas No rash, no bites, just you, scratching like a Victorian chimney sweep with scabies.

Heat Sensitivity Summer? Oh no, darling. A hot shower might as well be lava. Prepare to wilt like a sad Victorian poet.

Cognitive Fuzz (Brain Fog) You walk into a room and forget why. You forget words. You put your phone in the fridge. Basically, your brain’s on “buffering…”

Spasticity Muscles tightening up like you're trying to hold in a fart during a funeral. Only it’s involuntary. And constant.

Sexual Dysfunction The romantic thrill of numb genitals and nerves that ghost you mid-pleasure. How sexy.

Speech and Swallowing Problems Chewing and talking becomes a weirdly choreographed ballet of not choking. Miss a beat, and it’s dinner-on-the-ceiling time.

Hearing Loss (Rare, but possible) What? Sorry? Come again? — not selective hearing, just your ears being as unreliable as the rest of your nervous system.

Final Thoughts: MS — it's like your brain has installed Windows 95 and keeps trying to run modern life. Expect random errors, lagging limbs, and the occasional blue screen of emotional doom. You didn’t ask for this mess, but here we are. Stay strong. Laugh darkly. Nap often.

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky. sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

      “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”

Today’s ride? Oh, only the finest in terrifying neurological tourism. Think: one-way ticket to Neuro-Nowhere on the fastest fracking ghost train the NHS never ordered. It started subtly, like all horror stories do — a bit of brain fog, just a hint. You know, that charming little mental haze where you try to remember why you walked into the kitchen and end up staring into the fridge wondering if milk is a concept. But then, WHAM — the fog rolls in thick, like some straight-to-DVD horror film, complete with dodgy scenery and a soundtrack composed entirely of your own tinnitus. My head? Once a finely tuned Ryzen processor — top-spec, liquid-cooled brilliance. Now? I’m a dusty old 486 with a cracked fan and a hard drive that sounds like it’s trying to speak in Morse code. Bad sectors? More like bad everything. And then came the glorious MS parade. Step right up for numbness in places you didn’t even know could feel numb. Whole left side: offline. Zero coordination. Like a wet sock full of jelly. That’s the hand I used to write with — now it flops around like it's trying to start a fight with gravity and losing. Muscle spasms? Oh, darling. I'm twitching like a freshly electrocuted squirrel. My legs feel like overcooked spaghetti, while my arms do an interpretive dance I didn’t choreograph. Meanwhile, pins and needles prance up and down my limbs like they’ve got somewhere better to be. Then there’s the tremors — the sort that make you question whether you’re anxious or auditioning to be a malfunctioning animatronic at a forgotten seaside theme park. Add in fatigue so heavy it could anchor the Titanic, and you’ve got yourself a full-house bingo card of chronic chaos. Let’s not forget vision problems. My eyes are doing a sexy little in-and-out-of-focus routine, because who needs depth perception when you can feel like you're watching your life through a bootleg VR headset taped to a microwave? Balance? Coordination? Gone. I'm walking like a baby giraffe on a treadmill greased with WD-40 and regret. Gravity has declared war on me. I’ve fallen over more times today than a British politician answering a straight question. Oh and the bladder — everyone's favourite. It’s like a confused toddler. Sometimes silent. Sometimes shouting. Never at the right moment. Cheers for that. Of course, I had the nausea, too — and when I say "had," I mean projectile vomited like Satan’s own party cannon. Took a nice 20-minute break to redecorate the bathroom in eau de horror, came back covered in the stuff, laughing like a drunk banshee at a funeral disco. Shaking, sweating, spasming, blind-ish, numb-ish, and emotionally somewhere between existential dread and dark comedy gold. If Kafka and Monty Python had a lovechild with a neurological disorder, I’d be the script. Am I worried? Nah. This is Britain. We don’t panic. We just make sarcastic blog posts while quietly falling apart, perhaps accompanied by a lukewarm cuppa and the creeping suspicion that our body's warranty expired three years ago. So here I am. Still riding the neurocoaster. Still laughing. Still shaking like a ferret on MDMA. If this is hell, at least it’s got character. Back soon. Or not. Depends if my right leg decides to go on strike next.

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

       “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”

Here I am again—nobly fused to my chair like some relic of British stubbornness—gazing out of the window at the national weather forecast: wet, with a 100% chance of more wet. If grey skies were a national currency, we’d be laughing all the way to the food bank. Outside, the world carries on with its usual grim determination. Cars hum by on the main road, all in a hurry to get absolutely nowhere worth going. The local train wheezes around the loop like it’s got a purpose—bless it. And then the HSTs roar over the viaduct like they’re auditioning for a midlife crisis on wheels. What are they even rushing for? Everything’s still going to be crap when they get there. And the sheep—oh, the sheep. Standing around in the rain, bleating into the void like drunk students at a philosophy open mic. Not a brain cell between them, just damp wool and existential confusion. Honestly, if reincarnation's real, I must've pissed off someone important. Over all this melodrama, my music plays softly. Well, not so much softly as "pointlessly," because I've already got my own built-in horror soundtrack—tinnitus. That sweet, sweet screech that says “good morning” before I even open my eyes. Sometimes it hums, sometimes it screams, sometimes it sounds like someone’s microwaving a wasp inside my skull. Delightful. I remember when it first began—driving along the A39, minding my own business, when bam, reality decided to turn into a low-budget horror film. Been over ten years now. Ten years of having my own private noise machine jammed into my head. Wouldn't recommend it. As if that wasn’t already enough to make life feel like a practical joke, I’ve got MS too. The balance is shot. The fingers don’t work. The keyboard’s just a decorative item now. I dictate everything into my phone like I’m issuing commands to a particularly thick servant. Flashback time—around 25 years ago, I’m doing the washing up, pretending to be normal. Suddenly I notice the dishwater’s gone red. Thought the tomatoes had gotten out of hand—turns out, I’d stabbed myself in the hand. Didn’t feel a thing. Just stood there wondering if I’d invented blood-flavoured Fairy Liquid. That was just the start. Since then, I’ve had more accidents than a drunk toddler on roller skates. Broke both shoulders falling over. Multiple scars, most of them self-inflicted through sheer bloody-mindedness. Fell off a ladder, got back on it, fell off again. You’d think at some point I’d learn. But no—this is Britain. We don’t quit, we just keep making the same mistakes with added sarcasm. So now, I’ve accepted that my life is part soap opera, part public safety announcement. My body's turned into a rogue machine, and my brain’s mostly fog and loud noises. I don’t fear death—it’s not exactly hiding. Shows up every morning, waving from the corner like an overly familiar neighbour. And still, I sit here. Watching the rain, listening to the sheep, absorbing the relentless mediocrity of everything. It’s not tragic, it’s not heroic—it’s just... Tuesday. Sucks to be me? Oh, absolutely. But hey—if you can’t laugh at your own spectacular misfortune, what’s the point?

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

      “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”

“Many years ago, I was sitting in my wheelchair, minding my own business, when some prat decided to stare at me as though I were some sort of sideshow attraction. I wasn’t in the mood to feed the animals, so I ignored him. But, of course, he carried on, relentless as ever. So, I finally decided to turn my manual wheelchair to face him—no small feat, mind you, as it required the sort of effort usually reserved for a gym session. Anyway, long story short, I eventually upgraded to an electric wheelchair—supposedly the height of luxury. But let’s be honest: it was absolute rubbish. It ended up in wheelchair heaven, alongside all the other overpriced tin cans I’ve wasted money on over the years. They brag about a 20-mile range—utter nonsense. Three miles if you’re feeling optimistic. And as for the handling? Let’s just say there were a few moments that nearly saw me flattened by clueless drivers. Good fun, really. Still, I do try to be polite—sometimes even managing a half-hearted smile if I’m feeling generous. Mind you, my brain’s always off on some tangent—‘that’s just my head for you’, as they say. Anyway, I finally rolled over to this bloke and asked, ever so nicely, ‘Do we have a problem here?’ He started spouting off—language not fit for polite conversation—and I stayed calm as you like. Little did he know, I’m no delicate flower. Yes, I’ve got multiple sclerosis, but I’ve also got a wicked laugh and a tendency to surprise. So, I stood up to my full height, took off my shirt (why not, eh?), and said, ‘Let’s have it then.’ He legged it like a startled rabbit. I laughed so hard I nearly fell back into my chair. My balance wasn’t great back then—worse now, if I’m honest. So, that’s that. A little detour in memory lane, with a nod to my mates Warlock Stumuzz and the crew—those were the days. Happy times, even if the wheelchairs were rubbish.” looking out for a cheap 2hand q100 wheelchair sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

         “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”