Multiple sclerosis is a multifactorial disease. This means many factors that contribute to the disease.
Imagine it like a waterfall. Many streams combine to create the powerful deluge.
Consider the contributing streams
Understanding the causes of the disease is the first step to understanding how we can stem the flow and influence how MS progresses, or doesn’t progress.
Genes
Our genes form the basic terrain and the slope. But genes are not everything. They are the pre-dispositions. There have been dozens of genes marked as sites of interest. That’s all they are. We used to think genes were iron-clad and unchangeable. Now we know they aren’t. We have much control.
Environmental factors
Environmental factors can also make streams. Like whether you smoke — that’s a stream. I’ve been guilty of that. But no more.
Whether you drink alcohol — also guilty once upon a time — can be a stream racing to severe disability progression. Drugs (both prescription, illicit and recreational) form rivers. Like many of you, I have experienced these negative streams (I am not here to pass judgement.)
Food
There’s no suggestion that diet causes MS, but how is your nutrition? A high-quality diet is associated with lower MS disability over the long term.
Emotional factors
Dr Gabor Mate MD believes many diseases including autoimmune conditions are the result of childhood experiences. This can also include emotional factors. What was your emotional environment like growing up?
Trauma
Another stream researchers are investigating is trauma. Particularly childhood trauma or adverse childhood events (ACE). Which makes sense, doesn’t it. Think about it. When we’re small and stressed, and have an invisible enemy, who do we attack? Ourselves.
When we’re small and stressed, and have an invisible enemy, who do we attack? Ourselves.
Infections
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is almost certainly one of the big streams, although still unproven. Glandular fever in senior high school knocked me out and it took years to recover.
The remnant — the EBV — is a sneaky bugger and hides in our B cells, lying dormant, without immune-system detection. A sleeping tiger until something awakens it.
The slow
Stress and cortisol
Stress — everyone with MS says stress has triggered an attack or several of them. Several studies show that stressful life events are associated with significantly increased risk of MS onset and flareups.
Stress causes the chemical cortisol (the stress hormone) to leach from the skin and spread among those around you as well.
Stress causes cortisol (the stress hormone) to leach from the skin and spread among those around you as well.
That’s why stress is contagious. And stress is ageing, and stress in quantities we experience every day is closely linked to inflammation, which is the hallmark of most chronic diseases, including MS.
Cortisol helps us survive. It activates the amygdala (our fight-or-flight system), which sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. This alarm reverberates in our entire body until we have dealt with the threat.
The problem is we live in a world where we’re constantly spotting tigers.
But we live in a world where we’re constantly spotting tigers.
Rent increases. Costs of groceries. Bill shock. Nasty emails. Tiger, tiger, tiger.
The Mayo Clinic says ‘long-term activation of this stress response system and too much cortisol and stress hormones can disrupt almost ALL THE BODY’S PROCESSES (my emphasis).’
Workaholism
Workaholism is another addiction stream I’ve discovered. These days, there’s no such thing as nine-to-five. There are often no strong boundaries between work time and non-work time.
In Australia, the ‘right to disconnect‘ had to go to court. ABC reported that employees of small businesses will be able – legally – not to answer calls and emails outside of work time from 22 August, 2025.
If you work in a stressful job, you’ll know how precious it is to have your own thoughts. And I love to work — the sweet bliss of immersion in a task. Donald Hall said, Absorption is the paradise of work. But five hours a day. Not sixteen, thank you very much.
All of these streams coalesce and form, with great fury, the MS waterfall.
All of these streams coalesce and form, with great fury, the MS waterfall.
The exact streams that created your MS waterfall will be different from anyone else.
It can easily wash us away.
Thrashing in the water
Many of us give up. Either permanently or just for a while.
We say, I’ve got my sh*tty disease so that’s me done. We get a disability pension and a car parking permit. We take whatever we can. We wrap ourselves in the identity of having our lives taken away. Ruined. And bristle at the unfairness of it.
We stay up late. We go looking for information but in all the wrong places, like the sewer of social media. We grind through friendships, erode relationships. When you’re a victim, there’s no real power. There is only sympathy and it’s shortlived.
So we eat whatever we want. We buy stuff we don’t need. Repeat nonsense like ‘Life’s short, eat dessert first’ and ‘Play hard, die young.’ Doomscroll the internet and reinforce our biases. We wonder why a cure is taking so long.
After a while, we realise no one is trying to cure this disease. If you cure a disease, you kill the market. There’s too much money at stake.
A moment of insight
You do realise that you’re a valuable human being, right? In the entire history of the world, there has never been You before. And there will never be a You again.
Are you supposed to give up and fall down a waterfall?
You can if you want to. That’s fair.
Maybe you think, I don’t want this anymore.
I want my life back. Or a different life.
Could there possibly be some value you could extract from this harrowing experience?
The blanket has been pulled out from under our picnic.
Could there be a lesson in this?
Take my hand. Let’s walk over to the edge.
Peek over the edge
What a view! What a perspective!
Could this not be an opportunity not everybody gets?
Doesn’t that make it a gift as much as a curse?
We are here to learn.
Paramahansa said, ‘To have a human life is a noble privilege’.
Nothing is ever static. Everything changes, we have to change with it. It’s a ride, like a fairground. Enjoy it if you can.
So experience the waterfall, but don’t let it pull you down and suck you under. Do some meditation. Close your eyes. Step out onto a rockledge. Float up in the vapours.
Transcend it.
Wander around at the top where the water sources have all combined. Look at the sources. See the big ones and the small ones.
Pick up a big rock. Use it to block one of the big rivulets or change the direction of the flow.
Use a few easy-reach rocks to block small streams.
Create a healthier life. Set your boundaries. Get your calendar and schedule things you love. Stop postponing joy.
Schedule it!
You don’t have to get it all right the first time. Just mess around and play. It’ll find its way.
This is the process of setting personal boundaries and guardrails for your life.
Some of the streams go a long way back into the shadowy woods where we store cellular memory. These have deep origins. It’s painful. We have trauma to heal.
But trauma can be healed. It’s easier than we realise. Trauma isn’t something we’re supposed to live with. The more we heal, the more we believe it’s possible. It’s FIXABLE.
Post-traumatic stress disorder isn’t something you live with. It’s fixable.
Walk into the shadows and get jungle stripes.
We can make the waterfall slow down. The insights and we know enough to slow it to a trickle. Rest in the beautiful garden at the top of the waterfall.
We can live the best life with MS. You can start right now. You’re closer than you realise.
What is standing in the way to your best life?
Make your lists
Write down all the ways you are NOT living the best life. What are the obstacles? Include relationships, food, exercise, money and work, unhealthy habits. These are all things we can control.
For example, if you’re a workaholic who spends all day every day at an office, eats fast food several nights a week, doesn’t get enough sleep, and never exercises, I can see a whole lot of streams to your MS waterfall you can block.
Write down your plan B (for better). What are the solutions? Be idealistic. We don’t have to do everything at once, we just have to write them down. Write down the solutions you want. You already know what they are. Don’t worry about how.
For example, you could cut work to 4 days a week. There’ll be a pay cut, but you’ll survive.
Cook dinner at least three nights a week. Use vegetables and whole foods (real food). Experiment and have fun. (Presto, eating well cuts the grocery budget.)
Start going for a walk after dinner every night. (Regular exercise is making you feel better.)
Go to bed at 8:30pm. Stop using a phone at 7pm. Read in bed before sleeping. (You’re finally getting the sleep you need to restore your brain and energy.)
Watch a family movie/ travel show/ cooking show together with the family on Friday nights. (You feel happy together and connected.)
Imagineer your healthy future
Imagine yourself one year from now.
You have stopped the waterfall of MS attacks and disease progression. You have no MS symptoms.
It’s been your best year yet.
Your body, mind, and soul are harmonious. You feel well. You are healing.
Imagine yourself without those things standing in the way.
Feel how good your life feels. Imagine it. This is the first step toward creating the best life with MS.
Second, we design it.
Third, we build it and modify it as we go.
I hope and believe you can stop the waterfall too. Or at least transcend it.
Be well XO
