After five weeks of running with ms I am finding out the obvious, the largest hurdle is fatigue. So far it hasn’t kept me from running my 6-8 miles, rather it affects me afterwards. Hmm, sounds just like my body has always responded to running. So how is ms any different. In many ways it is not.

One of my most prevalent symptoms for my ms are that I experience mini seizures or spells. I feel sort of dizzy, but that’s not quite it (more on this later). Quickly, my speech gets slurred and I have trouble with coordination. I have been finding that I experience a small spell at the start of my run and then nothing further throughout (this is after I started Dylantin to manage the seizures (again, more on that later)) until I stop running. Almost immediately I get them again. Usually I will walk for a half mile or so to help myself cool down (even before ms) and sometimes the spells (I do love that word, so much better than seizures) don’t hit until I reach the house and begin my end of run stretches and exercises (more on that later as well).

Before I was diagnosed with ms, the spells would hit me during my run every 5-10 minutes or so and would last for maybe 10 seconds. I would feel them coming on and I would just slow to a walk, sort of stumble a bit throughout, and then start up again. I run with a partner on Saturdays and at first this really freaked her out (and me as well) as initially we didn’t know what was going on. She thought I was having a stroke, slurred speech, trouble walking, etc Who can blame her.

Now, and I don’t truly know if this is solely the Dylantin or just the natural course of ms with me, the spells have been lessened especially while running (as I describe above).

On the days I run my symptoms seem to be stronger almost like my ms slowly cools down as well. I want to take some days off to see if inactivity really has any affect on my symptoms. I suspect it will to a certain point, but inactivity isn’t the answer I am looking for. It is my hope that as I continue with the rebif (I am just into my third week of taking the injections and just now getting into the half dose of the med) that the symptoms will lessen (at least for now).