In August 1995 I had trouble walking and felt tired and needing to sit down every so often, walking up the stairs was very tiring and difficult. My eyesight became a problem, everything seemed foggy and out of focus.
I saw a temp doctor who talked to me, and more importantly listened to me, and so sent me to the hospital for tests, in the meantime I read all the books I could lay my hands on trying to find something that matched my symptoms. I narrowed it down to a possible three ilnesses, not too sure at that time, I was soon to find out. I was sitting in front of the TV looking for a video tape and flicked the channel over, as fate would have it, it was to a programme about Ceri Loader and of hers and others problems with having Multiple Sclerosis. As I watched it and listened to them describe their symptoms, I knew for sure that it was Multiple Sclerosis, and the tears were streaming down my face.
I said to the doctors and nursing staff I saw after that, that I knew it was Multiple Sclerosis, but none would confirm it to me until all the tests were done. One year later, I was diagnosed with relapse remitting multipe sclerosis, wasn't a surprise, I was just greatful it wasn't Motor Neurone Disease,

I started comfort eating, exercise became almost none existant and my weight went up and up, because I was still eating the same amount as before but not exercising. I tried losing weight, but it just went back on, plus a bit extra.
I was taken into hospital for 15 days at the end of August 2002 with a bad MS relapse, when I weighed over 19 stone (226lb). The two ambulance staff tried hard to lift me out of the chair to get me in the ambulance. Having to have the extension in the ambulance because the safety belt would't fit and the woman ambulance person sitting holding my side of the thing they make you lay on because I was too wide for it. The hospital porter who came to assist getting me and the thing I was laying on out of the ambulance wasn't very nice. It was as if he thought that because he wasn't talking to me, I couldn't hear him, even though I was only 5 feet away! He seemed to think of me as fat, ergo stupid and deaf, with no feelings. Its an unfortunate miscomprehension some people have that very overweight people are stupid and lazy, same as what some people think of people in a wheelchair, and to speak loudly like we're also deaf!
On the ward, each time they did everyones blood pressure they had to use a different one for me that was extra large because the usual one wouldn't fit me.

You have to be able to stand still for the digital scales for it to be able to calculate your weight, and while it did that, I wobbled because of the MS (multiple sclerosis) and then I didn't get a good reading.

So the crunch came at the start of January 2003 when I stood on the manual bathroom scales, with a maximum weight of 19 stone, and they broke when I stood on them.
I now get weighed once each three months at the hospital, using the sit down scales that they have there.
If you have a similar problem ask your doctor to refer you to see a hospital nutritiost who will weigh you using the hospital scales.

Since then I eat low fat foods and have 1,000 calories a day. I wanted to go to a low fat Rosemary Conley diet class, but there was only one accessable in York and they didn't have scales that I could be weighd on, so I gave it a try eating low fat with a once a week treat, like they would at the diet classes. I have a treat of something nice (but not too nice) as a reward for doing well on the diet that week. The treat can be as much as 650 extra calories. When I have a treat though I still look at the calories and fat content and decide which is the best to have. A golden syrup sponge pudding and custard may be lovely, for example, but the calories! That would wipe out all of the weeks good work. I have something I like instead that is better in fat and calories, but not so bad.