Liz Thompson - Healthy weight and exercise
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•537 views
The document discusses the benefits of exercise for people with multiple sclerosis (MS), including improved strength, muscle tone, energy levels, confidence, gait, sleep, digestion, reduced muscle spasms, and long-term health benefits such as improved cardiovascular health and posture. It also notes some challenges with exercise for MS patients, such as tiredness, exhaustion, and lethargy. The document provides three tips for getting started with exercise: manage weight gain, do intensive physiotherapy with small repetitive movements daily within fatigue limits, and use supportive devices as needed.
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Liz Thompson - Healthy weight and exercise
Similar to Liz Thompson - Healthy weight and exercise (20)
More from MS Trust
More from MS Trust (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Liz Thompson - Healthy weight and exercise
- 1. The Weighty Issue of Exercise for MS Liz Thompson
- 4. Just over a stone!
- 5. LIFE CHANGER NO. 1 Manage your weight before it manages you!
- 6. How to get started…?
- 8. LIFE CHANGER NO. 2 Intensive Physiotherapy Small repetitive movements practised every day within fatigue levels.
- 10. LIFE CHANGER NO. 3 Get supported to get going! Eg. leg brace, splint, crutches, walking stick or any other ‘aids to capability’
Editor's Notes
- When I started making notes on the importance of staying well and managing MS by maintaining a healthy weight and taking exercise, it quickly became clear that the list of benefits is so great that I could talk for England on the subject. However, I’m going to focus on 3 aspects that have proved life-changing for me. Any discussion about weight maintenance and diet must be positioned within the context of the emotional and physical challenges, and obstacles, presented by MS. As everyone here knows, diagnosis of MS is a major life event, hugely emotional, in many cases traumatic, and inevitably leading to significant changes.
- It’s all just a bit too much to take in at the outset and, based on personal experience and that of fellow MS’ers, a typical reaction is to desperately try and keep on doing the same as we’ve always done, and to maintain the same expectations of ourselves. But the reality is that everything is harder, whether it’s doing the food shopping, sustaining a day at work or taking the dog for a walk. It’s easy to appreciate how this can become a downward spiral of exhaustion, lethargy and demoralisation. Of all the challenges life can throw at you, there is nothing like a diagnosis of MS and the resultant struggle to come to terms with this, to drive a person – in their rare valuable moments of free time - to want to lie on the sofa and eat cake! So just at the very time you’re forced, through disability and fatigue, to use significantly less energy than ever before, the desire for comfort food has never been greater. As unfair as it feels, the inevitable consequence is gradually piling on pounds. For me that equated to putting on just over a stone in weight. The peak of my weight gain was around 4 years after diagnosis, and at that stage I was fairly constantly fatigued, using a walking stick all the time outside of our home – crutches on particularly bad days - and able to walk only around 200m before resting on good days. Being relatively tall I can fairly readily hide a few extra pounds, and, particularly as it crept up gradually, it was easy to convince myself that ‘it’s only a stone’, and ‘I’m not noticeably overweight’, so ‘it doesn’t really count’. Until I started thinking differently…
- So let’s just go back to that food shopping... It’s probably fair to say that carrying heavy shopping bags is no-one’s favourite job, but without MS, it has no more impact than being an ill-liked chore. With MS however, it’s a whole different experience. Now the impact of carrying those bags is hugely significant. Now carrying these bags has the power to – quite literally – stop your legs from being able to carry you. In my experience, it became impossible to walk from the supermarket doors to even the nearest Blue Badge space whilst carrying shopping bags. But imagine for a moment that I had to carry these bags everywhere, no matter where I was going or what I was doing – walking upstairs, going to the shops, doing the housework. It does not bear thinking about! And yet, taking these bags as an example – a few tins, bottle of milk, some veg, jam, flour and loaf of bread – the weight is, as I suspect you may have guessed, just over a stone. So, given that I have known from the outset that carrying bags this size is seriously debilitating, and then realising that carrying this very weight is exactly what I had been doing – and building up to it for years - it was no wonder I was constantly fatigued.
- Over the following 4-6 months I gradually lost the weight; regained strength and energy I’d forgotten existed; and with a total overhaul of my diet, found the added benefit of much improved internal workings – I’m sure you know what I mean! So, whilst this was no scientific experiment, in my mind, there is no doubt that maintaining your best weight is absolutely fundamental to managing your MS.
- Now feeling a little stronger and more motivated I revisited the possibility of exercise. Pre-diagnosis I was an avid hill-walker and regular runner so I faced diagnosis with a fairly good level of fitness, and consequently had a fairly strong muscle tone to carry me through the first months. However, trapped in the desperate cycle of resisting the inevitable life changes imposed by MS , it was little over a year before debilitating fatigue became the norm. Over the next few years I drastically changed my life, still keeping it full and busy, but re-prioritised exercise further down the scale. I knew I should be exercising – not only for my heart, lungs and long-term health, but also to try and fight the excruciating pain of nightly muscle spasms without relying on increasing doses of Baclofen. But, walking was not only physically challenging it was emotionally difficult too – walking had been my passion, I’d loved it, and now it came to represent all that I could no longer do, and that I so desperately missed. I tried other exercises but all felt impossible, no matter how hard I tried – and I tried really hard - ultimately it just felt too demoralising to keep spending valuable time, energy, and emotions on. For example, swimming (cool water brought on fatigue); core stability classes (couldn’t maintain balance so kept falling off exercise ball); yoga (took so long to get into position the class had moved on before I started); the list goes on. I was also – most generously – given an electric bike by my family as a big birthday present, which was amazing to get out and about on, but I just couldn’t seem to find enough strength to really get going…. Then… around 18 months ago I finally decided to change medication from Avonex to Tecfidira. This proved to be a great decision and gave me an almost euphoric surge in energy as I started to feel the oppressive weight of fatigue lifting. I soon found I was able to walk further and faster than I had in a long time, but still felt debilitating effects of fatigue in my legs well within a mile, and found uneven ground particularly challenging.
- By chance I then met a neurological physiotherapist who explained the principle of using repetitive, targeted, small movements to develop new pathways for messages to get through to my right leg - an intensive therapy primarily used for rehabilitation following a stroke. We met once a fortnight for the first 2 months, during which I had a series of exercises to do every day. The idea was to find movements that were just challenging; working within the limitations of fatigue; and becoming confident and competent at each level before increasing the difficulty, bit by bit. Initially, I confess, I had my doubts. Surely exercise is meant to be vigorous and energetic? And in the interests of ‘no pain, no gain’ isn’t exercise about pushing yourself beyond your limits? Apparently not…. I continued with this therapy, on a once a month basis, for a further 4 months. During this time I increased my walking distance and speed; progressed to cycling without added battery power some of the time; and improved my posture and gait. I was reminded of the sheer joy of feeling my heart pumping, once again getting out into the countryside beyond the reach of traffic fumes, and feeling my lungs filling with fresh air. And as an added bonus, with regular exercising, and stretching out afterward, I was able to manage muscle spasms without the need for Baclofen. And now, developing more strength and stamina, I was able to push through the boundaries of fatigue – admittedly sometimes at the short-term cost of a few days recovery – but, so far, without exception, with the ultimate benefit of increased energy and capability.
- So, whilst admittedly this was one factor within several changes I believe wholeheartedly that this type of intensive physiotherapy is responsible for enabling me to achieve such miraculous progress. Hence, Life Changer No. 2 – intensive Physiotherapy.
- Now, not that I wish to sound like I’m being greedy, but I still missed walking. I mean proper walking, out in the hills and countryside, being able to stride out from time to time. I also wanted to be able to have the option to walk into town and back – about a 1 ½ mile round trip – and confidently walk along the high street, or around a carnival or other such event on family days out. And preferably, and now I’m really aware how greedy I’m sounding , to be able to do it without using a stick. The thing that kept holding me back was the weakness in my right ankle – which very quickly feels like a rollerball – and foot drop, typically the first sign of fatigue. As a result I’d tripped and gone over on my ankle several times and painfully pulled the ligaments, - even whilst using a stick - so concern about this happening again and potentially stopping me from taking any exercise, possibly for weeks, really impacted my confidence. Then came another discovery…. An ankle splint.
- And what an amazing piece of kit! It’s true that it’s not glamorous, and definitely not compatible with fashion shoes. But with walking shoes it’s transformational and without a doubt LIFE CHANGER NO 3. Because it directly compensates the weakest and most vulnerable part of my leg, it provides the strength and support to make up – to a substantial degree – the deficit. In fact it’s made so much difference that I soon found I no longer needed to use a stick for getting to and around town, and was also able to walk with confidence on uneven ground, opening up the potential for not only walking further, but walking off the beaten track.