It is still important to ensure that you attend all your routine screenings eg. Mammograms, Cervical screening, prostate screening, bowel screening and other relevant.
When you are living with MS, there are many ways to improve your health apart from medications.
Healthy eating is important. There are lots of reports of different diets people try for MS and it can be confusing deciding which diet is best. Studying the best diet in MS is challenging, so good quality data is lacking. It is also true that restricting your diet in a very extreme way can introduce additional unnecessary stress to your life. Overall, we recommend a Mediterranean diet, which is high in fruit, vegetables, fish, nuts and seeds, and low in rich dairy and red meat. Many people with MS choose to supplement their diet with vitamin D as there is some (albeit weak) evidence that vitamin D helps improve outcomes in MS. If you choose to supplement with vitamin D we recommend a dose of 4-500IU per day.
Physical exercise is also important for people with MS. The benefits of exercise on MS outcomes may relate to several factors including maintaining physical strength/ flexibility, and improving mental wellbeing. Any sort of exercise can be beneficial. If you need advice on how to keep physically active, you can contact our team.
Alcohol is only advised within recommended limits (14 units per week). This is because excessive amounts of alcohol bad for overall brain health, and could therefore theoretically worsen your MS.
Stop smoking- apart of general adverse effects on health, there is evidence that smoking Tabacco is bad for MS. If you would like advise or support with smoking cessation please go to:
Stopping Smoking - Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (nhs.wales)
Request A Call Back | Help Me Quit
Sleep/ Stress- receiving a diagnosis of MS and living with day-to-day symptoms can understandably place strain on people. Taking time for yourself is very important to enable you to adjust and reduce stress. If you are having problems with adjusting to your diagnosis or managing stress, please look at some of the self-help resources below and let us know if you would like to talk about other possible solutions.
Cognition -If you are struggling with your memory and thinking contact your MS nurse and we can discuss your case and provide advice.
Here are some examples of useful resources: