MS

Living with MS Edinburgh

*This is my bit blog and therefore my thoughts/options* on Living with MS Edinburgh being an information day for anyone affected by MS that I happily attended, and will be more about the day than the travel to and from it! This event was held in the Sheraton Hotel which was beautifully laid out, in a spacious floor in the hotel with many orange-clad volunteers supporting the 150 attendees.

MS Scotland

The area in the hotel had been planned well, wasn’t too big or small offering fine accessibility and had plenty of MS stuff throughout!

So what was the order of the day, what happened?

It began with a welcome from the chair, Mary Douglas from the MS Society Scotland (9:45 – 10:00) welcoming us and touching on what was ahead.

Breaking Boundaries in MS Research, was started straight after (~10:00) by Becky Driscoll. A fairly generic(ish) overview (IMO!) of MS initially, presented very well. The content was detailed and shows/showed how much I/we (those of us who keep up-to-date with related news as it occurs; in the public realm of course!) know through our own/my MS studies. Presentation went like a bit this:

·        Basic MS description at start

·        Further information

·        The MS Register

·        Fatigue Management FACETS (Fatigue: Applying Cognitive behavioural and Energy Effectiveness Techniques to life Style)

·        Exercise and MS

·        Cognitive rehabilitation

·        Biomedical research

·        Causes of MS

·        Genes and MS

·        Vitamin D

Drug development path

·        Stem cells

o   HSCT

·        Developing effective treatments

o   Early research 6-9 years, clinical trials 7+ years…

·        Simvastatin

·        MS Smart

·        Breaking news: Ocrelizumab – PPMS

o   Treatments in the pipeline – many in phase 2 which is great

·        Get involved – trials; as neuro etc. clinicaltrials.gov

I have missed out details of Becky’s fantastic presentation as they are within said presentation, her brilliant work, not mine!

Breaking Boundaries art

~10:45 ‘Conversation with Michelle Mitchell’ the MSS Chief Executive (spoke of what her impressions are and desire to increase global awareness & network) and Morna Simpkins, MSS Scotland Director (talked about MS Scotland’s whereabouts and plans). It was good to hear from ‘official’ leading bodies connected to – thankfully! – and leading the charity at this event!

This then kicked-off the day – after refreshments were had – of choices for us patrons to do as we wanted with the workshops available.

Out of interest I chose as first port of call to see what I could learn about Diet and Exercise.