Here’s a good, basic, article from United Spinal:
Exercising With Multiple Sclerosis: It’s Not Rocket Science
One mistake that many people make when they start exercising regularly—whether it’s lifting weights, circuit training, or performing cardio—is focusing on what everyone else in the room is doing. Bad idea. Naturally, when you notice others at the gym lifting twice as much as you are, running twice as fast on the treadmill, or working out with a lot more intensity, it?s easy to feel a bit disheartened. The best course of action you can take, however, is to focus on yourself.
This is probably the hardest part for me.
Thanks for the link. I’ll possibly receive my MS diagnosis this Thursday and I don’t think I’m ready to commit to a drug. Health and fitness sounds like the right path for me at this time. Hopefully my neuro will agree.
Thanks for commenting, Sarah, and if you are in fact about to join the club, I’m sorry.
Do look carefully at the disease-modifying drugs; they are most effective used early in the course of the disease. Health and fitness are obviously always a good idea!
Hi Katja
Really find your blog helpful on lots of fronts.
The sport and exercise you participate never ceases to leave me a bit gobsmacked at the pace you sustain.
Do you use cooling clothing or any other methods to help regulate temperature? The only ones I’ve come across were designed more with a roadwork/construction worker in mind than for exercise … plus really expensive for such unaesthetically pleasing items.
Any suggestions??
Hi, Sadie – you’re probably extra gobsmacked because I don’t post entries about how many days I laid around in bed recovering from all that exercise!
Cooling – mostly I’ve just become a fan of being wet. It took me a while, but now I understand that riding through the sprinkler is a good thing. I was out on a handcycle ride a while back and on my way home I was starting to get that “I have to lie down and stop moving right now” feeling. I went by a house where a guy was water his lawn. I slowed down and asked him if he would squirt me with his hose. He wouldn’t do it! He kept telling me how cold it was, and how really unhappy I would be. I just could not convince him that it was a serious request.
So take a squirt bottle with you. Wet bandanna on the head or stuffed down the front of your (skimpy mesh) top also helps. Oh, and don’t wear cotton T-shirts; get those space age athletic things.
Molto grazie
(moments concerning hose squirting deny-ers sounds postively Seinfeld-esque!)