Living With Multiple Sclerosis
- CNN chief correspondent, award-winning anchor, and dad of three, John King has revealed he’s altered his life to better live with multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease he initially chose to keep private.
- There is no cure for MS and affects everyone differently, but people battling the disease do have methods to manage their symptoms. Common tools MS patients use to improve their quality of life include wheelchairs, canes, leg braces, and some medical treatments called disease-modifying therapies (DMTs).
- Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) is the most common type of MS among the million people battling the disease in the United States like King, RRMS is marked by sudden flare-ups, new symptoms, or worsening of symptoms and cognitive function. If you are feeling persistent numbness and tingling, it is important to take note of the symptoms you are experiencing, how frequently you are experiencing them, and report it to your doctor.
King has been living with multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease of the central nervous system in which the immune system eats away at the protective covering of the body’s nerves, since his symptoms began approximately 27 years ago. He was officially diagnosed about 15 years ago with the disease.
Read More“We all know the spectrum of MS, and I have relapsing-remitting, which sucks. It is with me every second, it is with me today, I’m waving my hands as we have this conversation.”
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As for how he’s altered his mind and way of living to better align with MS, he explained, “With this disease, you need to find whatever it is that works for you. If it’s your exercise, if it’s your peace, if it’s your Bravo [referring to how Applegate’s outlet during MS is her Bravo reality shows], whatever it is that is going to put your brain in a better place because that brings down your stress level.
“It brings down your stress level. And anything that you can do to push the trigger bar down, right? To put more space between where you are and where the trigger is. We all have our different triggers and that to me has been the fascinating part, the learning part.”
He continued, “The human brain is amazing. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I know that I have rewired my life, or that my brain has allowed me to rewire my life that I’m able to do things now that I could not do six months, or two years, or even 10 years into this disease.
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Explaining how that has happened, King said, “Well, it’s good doctors, it’s good medications, but it’s also just the human brain. If you push it.”
He added, “But everybody’s symptoms are different. It’s just, somebody has a burn, you see it. Somebody has other injuries, you see it. This is not only invisible to a lot of people, but it’s different for every single person.
“And sometimes it’s different for an individual within the course of the day or the course of the week. And that’s what makes it so hard to explain and it’s what makes it, one of the things which I’ve learned.”
King also pointed out how it’s often difficult for MS warriors to express to their loved ones how they’re feeling.
He said, “They do give you help and sometimes you get furious with them because they don’t understand. You don’t understand, they don’t understand, and then you start to get mad, which triggers your stress, which makes things worse.
“That journey will never end. We’re all on this interesting journey, and that part, trying to figure out how to communicate. I need to wear a sign that says, you know, ‘I’m only half broken today,’ ‘Well, I’m three-quarters broken today,’ ‘I’m really broken today.”
John King’s MS Diagnosis
CNN chief correspondent John King, who first joined the network in 1997, previously spoke with Medline Plus magazine in 2022, admitting it took about a decade of symptoms before figuring out what was wrong, and it wasn’t until a presidential election he was covering in 2008 that he finally got his answer after a paramedic suggested he might have the degenerative disease.
“I had numbness and loss of control that spread to my hands and most of my upper body. A paramedic at the convention site pulled me aside and said, ‘My bet is you have MS,’” the Boston-born award-winning journalist, who is now based in Washington D.C., recalled to the health outlet. “It took a while to get all of the proper testing, but late that fall I finally had a series of tests that confirmed I have MS.”
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“I haven’t had full sensation in my legs since Bill Clinton was president,” he added of the “heavy like lead” or “nonresponsive” feeling mixed with numbness and tingling he has experienced beginning during Clinton’s term (the 42nd former president served from 1993-2001).
At first, King kept the diagnosis to private 13 years, but he began speaking out after the pandemic hit. Like many millions of others, he was frustrated with what was going on around him, especially being immunocompromised.
The father of three first announced his news on CNN, live on the air in 2021.
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Admitting he was “full of fear” after learning what he was facing knowing full well what the “cruel disease” is capable of, King recalled how his doctors were “fairly optimistic that he had the “relapse-remitting” type of MS. “The hope was that with medication, this form of MS could be managed.”
Understanding Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis causes the immune system to attack cells that form the protective sheath that covers nerve fibers in the spinal cord. The disruption leads to communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body.
Once the protective barrier is damaged, the spinal cord struggles to send messages to the arms, legs, and other parts of the body to function normally.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society outlines the different types of multiple sclerosis:
- Clinically isolated syndrome (CIS): This is when an individual experiences a single neurological episode lasting 24 hours or less. CIS is what MS is diagnosed as until there is a second episode.
- Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS): The most common MS among the million people battling the disease in the US, RRMS is marked by sudden flare-ups, new symptoms, or worsening of symptoms and cognitive function. The condition will then go into remission for some time before reemerging with no known warning signs.
- Primary progressive MS (PPMS): These individuals have no flare-ups or remission, just a steady decline with progressively worse symptoms and an increasing loss of cognitive and body functions.
- Secondary progressive MS (SPMS): This is an almost transitional form of MS that progresses from RRMS to PPMS.
In addition to balance issues, numbness, and tingling in the limbs, other common MS symptoms include vision and bladder control problems. Mood changes and mental and physical fatigue are other symptoms people living with MS may experience according to the National Institute of Health.
Treating Multiple Sclerosis
There is no cure for MS, but MS warriors battling the disease do have methods to manage their symptoms.
Common tools MS patients use to improve their quality of life include wheelchairs, canes, leg braces and some medical treatments called disease-modifying therapies (DMTs).
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A study in American Family Physician found DMTs “has been shown to slow disease progression and disability; options include injectable agents, infusions, and oral medications targeting different sites in the inflammatory pathway.”
While chemotherapy is widely known as a cancer treatment that uses drugs to kill cancer cells, it is also effective at slowing down or stopping disease activity in MS. Actress Selma Blair previously underwent chemotherapy as part of her treatment for MS.
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Questions for Your Doctor
If you are diagnosed with MS or may be concerned you have the chronic disease due to symptoms you’re experiencing, consider asking your doctor the following questions.
- Although there’s no cure for MS, which treatment option to manage my symptoms do you recommend for me?
- Are there any potential side effects of MS treatment?
- What if the treatment to manage symptoms doesn’t work?
- Will exercise or therapy help my symptoms?
- Are there any MS support groups you recommend to help me cope?
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Mental Health: The Basics
The term mental health refers to both our emotional and psychological well-being. Our mental health can affect how we think, feel, and behave.
Certain triggers like stress, traumatic events, or change in your physical health can affect mental health. One of the things Gomez stresses to her fans and followers is the importance of seeking help when you’re struggling internally.
Problems with mood and overall mental well-being can be attributed to several factors. For some people, it’s genetic, while others may be experiencing a response to some sort of stressor or past trauma.
Learning To Cope With Mental Health Struggles
“I think flexibility is really a core of how to manage it,” Dr. Samantha Boardman, a New York-based psychiatrist and author, told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview. “Are your coping strategies that you’re using now, are they helpful in the way that they were in the past?”
Dr. Boardman suggests working to recognize any negative thoughts that may be making the process of cancer treatment more difficult, and trying to dismantle those to be more “realistically optimistic.”
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In order to keep your mental health in check, it’s necessary to be aware of signs, even the subtle ones, that there is something affecting your mind. These signs include:
- A change in eating or sleeping habits
- Losing interest in people or usual activities
- Experiencing little or no energy
- Numb and/or hopeless feelings
- Turning to drinking or drugs more than usual
- Non-typical angry, upset, or on-edge feelings
- Yelling/fighting with loved ones
- Experiencing mood swings
- Intrusive thoughts
- Trouble getting through daily tasks
These symptoms can be wide-ranging and vary a great deal from person to person. Everyone experiences grief differently, for example.
However, if you are feeling unusually sad, on edge, or like you’re no longer interested in activities you used to love, know that there are many treatment options available and many different healthy ways to help you cope.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
