An article written by my husband Rich, who “lives with MS” just as much as I do! 

Finding practical ways to help for your spouse with MS can be very difficult when you’re in the middle of one of their relapses in relapsing remitting MS. It can be even more challenging if they have secondary progressive, progressive relapsing, or primary progressive MS. You feel terrible that you can’t take away their pain, or help restore their ability to function at the level they used to enjoy.

My wife was diagnosed about 7 years ago with relapsing remitting MS. It has been quite an emotional roller coaster ride for us. My wife mainly struggles with debilitating fatigue. People with MS can have a lot of different symptoms and difficulty functioning in everyday life. Some people have problems with speech, ability to think clearly and concentrate. Also, others have problems with memory, small and large motor movement, which can include the ability to walk, or even write.

It’s hard to see the people we love to go through these dramatic changes. Sometimes it is comforting to remember that we are all changing as we grow older. I’m not the same person I was 20 years ago, and neither is anyone else reading this today. Our bodies get older, more susceptible to illness, but hopefully, we are also growing wiser. So, I decided to put together this list of things we can do to help our spouses in dealing with this awful disease. Here are five very practical ways you can help your spouse deal with MS:

1. Just be there. A lot of spouses decide early on that they did not sign up for this when they first got married, or entered into their partnership. So, they cut and run. We had a friend recently who had to deal with this. Whenever someone leaves like that it has a profound impact on all people involved. There is a real sense of letdown and betrayal. Just making the decision and the commitment to be there is the first step in the long process of dealing with MS. You cannot help someone deal with MS if they are worried that you may decide to leave at any moment in the future. Just knowing that they can count on you can have a great impact on partner’s recovery.

2. Adjusting expectations - The best thing that I can do is be there for my wife is to adjust my expectations of her and accepting her the way she is. Maybe she can’t perform at the level she did before consistently in everything, but there are still a lot of things she can do! Be thankful for what your spouse can do and capitalize on that. Also, be aware that your spouse may need to retool and re-educate themselves for another job or opportunity like working from home on the internet.

3. Reaffirming your goals and plans – Having a spouse or partner with MS forces you to take another look at your goals and plans for the future. Maybe one or both of you were on a career path, or had goals for your family that you need to reevaluate. That doesn’t mean that you can’t still do them. But, you may need to take another route to get there. If furthering your education is your goal you might need to take on another job, or do a part-time business that can make you enough money to meet the expenses for those educational goals.

4. Readjusting your focus – This involves looking realistically at how you are functioning and looking at new ways to reach your goals. Most people want to be debt free, have more choices in life, and to be able to spend more time with their family. Many believe that pursuing a career is the best way to accomplish those goals. Education is the place most people start. However, not everyone has to go to a traditional college to obtain their education or training. More and more people are turning to online education and training. You might not even need a degree or certification. Computer training is available to help learn how to operate important computer programs. Other training is available to assist you in learning how to market products and information online. There are alternatives to traditional ways of doing things to reach your goals. Don’t give up! Just readjust your focus and keep pressing on.

5. Staying on course – We stay on course by being persistent, patient, and providing encouragement to each other. An airplane’s computer has to make numerous corrections once a course has been plotted by the navigator. We must do the same if we are to reach our goals. Meet regularly with your spouse and evaluate to see how you are doing. Encourage your spouse to not give up. Praise them when they do a good job. Recognize excellence and even incremental progress. In fact, you need to celebrate it! You also need to recognize your failures and shortcomings and work to improve them. However, don’t let that stop you from celebrating your accomplishments.

Finding practical ways to help your spouse with MS can be emotionally and even physically draining. But, it is worth all the effort you can muster. Committing yourself to be there for your spouse, adjusting your expectations, communicating and reaffirming your goals and plans, readjusting your focus, and being persistent by staying the course all go a long way in helping your spouse with MS. It all goes a long way because you’re not just focusing on their MS, but you’re looking at the whole person. MS does not define them as a person. We all define ourselves by how we live our lives and the choices we make. Between my wife’s illness and caring for a special needs child, we ourselves in many ways have had break out of the mold of the traditional way of doing things (i.e. we homeschool our son, she works from home full time, I do a lot more cooking and cleaning). We hope by educating others about alternative ways to address MS through living a healthy lifestyle and by encouraging them to be persistent and stay the course we can help make a difference in their lives as well.

The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book written by Roy Swank and Barbara Brewer Dugan was what started me on the road to looking into alternatives to the standard treatments for MS that I had used for 2 years.  I have followed the Swank Diet now for about 5 years and do believe it has helped a lot to make my symptoms and flare-ups of MS much more manageable. 

The book is divided into 2 portions, with the first being a lot of information about MS in general and the research and premises behind the diet.  The information is a little bit dated, but it’s helpful, encouraging, and makes a lot of sense.  The book has also been updated at least once since it was originally published. 

The second part of the book is recipes– over 200 pages of yummy recipes for just about every category that you can think of that make this diet easy to incorporate into your life!  I keep this book with all my recipe books and refer to it often. 

The basics of the Swank Diet are low fat, limited red meat, and limited processed foods.  Using the ideas for recipes in the book and other resources like the ones I will share with you on this blog make this diet manageable and not too difficult to implement. 

This diet is helpful not only for MS but for other chronic conditions as well that are so prevalent in our day like other autoimmune and/or inflammatory conditions, obesity, and heart disease. 

Here is a simplified checklist of the basics of the Swank Diet, which I borrowed from another website:  www.swankmsdiet.org. 

1.  Saturated fat should not exceed 15 grams per day.
2.  Unsaturated fat (oils) should be kept to 20-50 grams per day.
3.  No red meat for the first year.
4.  After the first year, 3 oz. of red meat is allowed once per week.
5.  Dairy products must contain 1% or less butterfat unless otherwise noted.
6.  No processed foods containing saturated fat.
7.  Cod liver oil (1 tsp. or equivalent capsules) and a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement are recommended daily.

At the Swank MS Foundation website you can read more about the diet and the other components of a healthy lifestyle that go hand-in-hand and that Dr. Swank also address in this book:  “Adequate rest, reduced stress, and an optimistic attitude that having MS is above all a call to live life to its best and fullest.” 

I would highly recommend this book as a great place to start if you are looking into alternatives or additions to the standard medical treatments for MS like I was.