Okay, I offered to be a "host" in this group, whatever that means. It was mostly just

[tpsbmam]

testing it out to see what it's all about.

I guess I qualify as a "host" in this group. I was diagnosed with MS in 1986.....I think my early symptoms showed 2+ years before that. I was an incredibly healthy New Yorker -- I walked almost everywhere I went, lived in a 5th floor walkup and thought nothing of running up and down those steps a few times a day, had been a vegetarian for a long time, worked for a dance company (in administration) and took the dancers' strengthen & stretch class 2 or 3 times a week.....so I went into my GP and asked him why the hell I was so tired all the time. (Hell, look at my schedule -- I'm exhausted just thinking about it!) But I had previously had energy to burn after all of that....no longer. All of my tests came back perfect. My doc was good but old-fashioned. He told me humans were made to be carnivores and I should start eating meat!

Me: But you just told me all of my tests were perfect -- I'm not anemic, which would be the only justification for your argument (and all that would mean would be I needed to attend more to getting protein through soy, etc). So WTF?

He had no answer for me.

It was 2 years later that my left side went numb -- I thought I was having a stroke. I'd just moved to CT and gone back to school. I ended up going back to NYC. The same doc saw me then referred me to a neurologist, telling my mother but not me (which thoroughly pissed me off since I was an adult patient.....but they were old family friends) that it was likely either a brain tumor or MS. I got one of the first MRIs done at Columbia Pres! As a matter of fact, it broke the first time I was in it -- I was in it for almost 2 hours. They kept talking to me to soothe me. I finally told them to shut up -- I'd almost been asleep a few times and they woke me up! They finally gave up after almost 2 hours and I had to go back the next day after they'd repaired it.

So I've been dealing with the ramifications of MS for about 26 years and yeah, I'm old pro-ish at this crap!