S7E02 Webinar highlights – Healthy changes for you and your family

Dr Michelle O’Donoghue  00:00

And, you know, I just really want to encourage people that one, I really think that the OMS program is based in real science. It’s beneficial, not only for an autoimmune condition but I truly believe, probably for most illnesses that that are prevalent in our society. A large number of them are probably diet based in some way, in some way, shape or form.

 

Overcoming MS  00:30

Welcome to Living Well with MS. This show comes to you from Overcoming MS, the world’s leading multiple sclerosis, healthy lifestyle charity which helps people live a full and healthy life through the Overcoming MS program, we interview a range of experts and people with multiple sclerosis. Please remember all opinions expressed are their own. Don’t forget to subscribe to Living Well with MS on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode, and now let’s meet our guest.

 

Laura Crowder  01:05

My name is Laura Crowder. I’m a facilitator at Overcoming MS as well as a teacher and health coach, and I’m joining you from Cornwall in the UK. In today’s webinar, we will be exploring the theme of healthy changes for you and your family, and we’ll be welcoming Professor Michelle o’ Donahue and ambassadors Vicky had and Anne Halstead to the virtual stage for a panel discussion, hearing about their experiences of today’s theme and their top tips. They will also be answering some of your important questions. So today’s webinar covers two pillars of the Overcoming MS program, Family Health and Change Your Life, for Life. I was diagnosed with MS in 2018 and as a daughter, sister, wife, auntie and mother to two teenagers, the pillar of family health has been a key part of my Overcoming MS journey. I remember watching the introductory webinar on the OMS handbook two years ago and hearing Professor Jelinek say that before OMS came along, people were not talking about what we might do for the rest of the family to prevent them developing MS or to consider how your particular journey might affect their journeys through life. For many people, including me, the Overcoming MS program is life changing. And as Professor Jelinek says, our journeys affect our family’s journeys, what I didn’t perhaps realize when I embarked on the program is that the effect would be such a positive one. In the foreword to the handbook, Linda Bloom describes the OMS program as a valuable tool for the families and loved ones who are also on this journey. And after six years of following the program, I can definitely say that this has been true for my family. I have to admit, it wasn’t the case when I first started the program, as after learning about the risks of family members, I tried to force changes, particularly dietary ones, on my family, and these weren’t always very well received. However, once my family saw the benefits that I was experiencing, they began to make their own healthy changes, not just to their diets, but also to their mindsets. And as a result, the Overcoming MS program has brought about so many healthy changes for me and my family. Two chapters in the handbook cover family health, specifically chapter 16, on pregnancy and childbirth, and chapter nine, covering families and prevention, the theme of positive change runs throughout the handbook, but in chapter 19, The Road Ahead, Professor Jelinek writes about how we can integrate the OMS program into life and describes it as a whole of life change based on the best available science, to reduce our risk of progression and to reduce the risk of our loved ones developing the illness. In the preface to the handbook, Professor Michelle O’Donoghue writes about some of the changes the Overcoming MS program has had on her life, and she states that these changes can only lead you to a place of enhanced physical and spiritual health. I’m delighted to say that Michelle is joining us as our expert speaker today. So without further ado, I’d like to welcome Professor Michelle O’Donoghue to the virtual stage to speak about healthy changes for you and your family. Hi, Michelle, how are you?

 

Dr Michelle O’Donoghue  04:47

Hi Laura. I’m delighted to be joining as a panelist. This is a program that I’m very passionate about, and so I really relish the opportunity to be speaking with both our our other panelists as well as those who are joined this evening,

 

Laura Crowder  05:02

We’re just delighted to have you. I was just wondering that so that our viewers at home can get to know you a little better. Please could you introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your involvement in the Overcoming MS Handbook?

 

Dr Michelle O’Donoghue  05:15

Absolutely. So I live in Boston, where I’m a practicing cardiologist, so I’m not a neurologist, but I but I am a physician. And I was born in Canada, but I’ve lived now in Boston for for the past couple of decades. Now, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was in my early 30s. Now that was around 2010 that I was diagnosed. And I have to say, as you know, as a physician, I knew the signs, and it did cross my mind when I was losing vision one day. It was the first time that this had happened. I had been feeling perhaps a little bit run down and out of the blue. I just started to notice a bit of a veil coming down over my vision on one of my eyes, and it really worsened quite rapidly over the course of the next one to two days. And when I was waiting to get an MRI, when I went to the hospital to to be evaluated, the idea of MS crossed my mind, but I have to say that I never really thought that that would be the diagnosis I was facing. And I think part of that was just a profound fear I had always had of multiple sclerosis. I had only ever known people who’d had really difficult cases. As a child I had known many people who, you know, had bravely faced their future in a wheelchair, but obviously had many struggles along the way. And of course, there are many people who are otherwise diagnosed with multiple sclerosis who live very healthy lifestyles. And of course, for even those who are in a wheelchair or otherwise have other visible or invisible barriers to daily activity, that there certainly is a path towards improved health. But I think at the time, I was just absolutely terrified of the diagnosis that I was facing, and initially I was not willing to make a lot of lifestyle changes. You know, it’s interesting. I immediately asked the doctor, there was an intuitive part to me that perhaps a diet and lifestyle could be a favorable change that I could make in my life. And so when I was faced with that diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, and let me tell you, I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified, and you know, you’re just meeting me for the first time, but I was sobbing uncontrollably. It was just, it’s just such shocking news to receive. And as a physician, perhaps in some ways, I knew too much, and the news was discouraging, but I asked the neurologist about changes to the life, to my lifestyle, that I could make. And he did immediately mention the work of Roy Swank. And for those of you who are quite familiar with the OMS program, you’ll know that Dr Swank had actually set much of the early research work that helped Dr George Jelinek embark upon his journey towards creating the OMS program. But nonetheless, even though the doctor told me about this information, I really stuck my head in the sand. I had a hard time. I, you know, initially went through a period of denial, then followed by reading a lot of discouraging books that were telling me that, you know, invariably, that I was going to be having mobility and other types of problems in the very near future. And I was really quite discouraged. I initially found Doctor Jelinek’s book relatively early on, and it’s interesting, I picked it up for the first time, started reading it, and it’s as though I wasn’t quite ready to to accept the information. But a few months later, I circled back and I picked that book up again. And you know, by I mentioned that I’m a cardiologist, but I’m actually also a researcher, so I’m somebody who practices what we call evidence based medicine. I really like to understand the research that goes behind the different recommendations that we offer as physicians, and that’s what really ultimately resonated for me with the book. You know, as a doctor, I had not spent much time thinking about diet, even as a cardiologist, which seems so absurd to me now, but it really wasn’t part of what we had learned in medical school, not just that, but the idea of incorporating so many different aspects of healthy living into one’s life was, again, not something that I had spent an awful lot of time thinking about as a physician. I was busy. I didn’t had my, you know, head down in the books. And it wasn’t really, until I started to embrace this concept that, you know what, there is hope. And this is an actual it’s not just grasping at straws, but in fact, it’s actually based in science, and there’s research to support these decisions. And at that point in time, I really made a head first dive into the OMS program, and have embraced it ever since. So I’ve been following the OMS program now for 13 years, and initially, I never thought I could possibly make the type of, you know, diet and lifestyle changes that were required. I had absolutely embraced them. Now, specific to, you know, today’s focus is really about thinking about family and how that, how the OMS program can can build into into that. Now, I welcome the stories from the other panelists as my story is probably a little bit different than theirs. I was diagnosed with MS before I was married, so I was living alone at the time, and I met my husband a few years later. I will admit that initially I was hesitant to tell him even about my diagnosis of MS. I had been living well, and, you know, at the time, there was no visible, reason that that somebody would ask me if I had multiple sclerosis, even though actually the the eyesight in one of my eyes never recovered from that initial bout of optic neuritis. But I eventually told my at the time, boyfriend, who later became my fiance, and he was absolutely incredibly supportive. And of course, he had already noticed the, you know, the diet that I was following, but he really immediately wanted to support me any way that he could. And from that point forward, I have to say that it’s actually been quite easy for me to have my husband follow an OMS diet. He was a steak and potatoes kind of guy, but he likes to say that very often, a man will just eat what’s put in front of him and I think there’s some truth, at least in our house, that I really found recipes that he liked and was able to to cook that way at home. And when we go out to restaurants, he will, you know, eat whatever he likes on the menu, although I think now that I’ve really shaped his vision of health in such a way that he is actually very health conscious in general, in a way that he wasn’t before. The second thing that I will note was that I then faced many challenges with fertility. I had gotten married and at an older age, and I ended up having to undergo in vitro fertilization. And you know, as you know, there are many different hormones that are injected to your body during that time, it can be quite the hormonal roller coaster, but I when I knew that I was going to have to undergo IVF, that’s where I really doubled down on my commitment to healthy living. I really wanted to embrace not just the diet, but also making sure that I was being careful about meditation, exercise, and all sorts of different aspects of healthy living that I can embrace. Then finally, how have I incorporated all of this with my children? So I have a stepson who’s 14 years old, and I’m delighted to say that I have a three year old healthy boy who I gave birth to at the age of, I think, just a week before I turned 44 years old, so certainly on the older side. And let me tell you first, that also during this entire journey over the past 13 to 14 years, even though my disease was very active during that first year after my diagnosis, once I embrace the OMS program, knock on wood, I have lived every day healthily since then, I have not had any evidence of disease recurrence. I actually stopped for me, it was the right decision to stop my medication for MS at the time that I was trying to become pregnant, and since I’ve remained healthy, my personal decision has been that I’ve actually remained off of medication since that time during my pregnancy, I was very careful again, about maintaining my health, but then also thinking about my now son, Jamie, making sure that he was getting vitamin D supplementation, and that’s something that I also carried through during the first year of his life, as well as well as beyond. I’ve also strongly believed in the link between dairy exposure and MS risk, and so that is something that I’ve been very conscious of. To breast fed for as long as possible during that first year, and to really limited any type of dairy exposure whenever possible. As for my stepson, it actually was, again, quite easy in many ways, to have to find ways to balance foods that he liked at the time with my program, and at the time he was vegetarian as well, and he was less than 10 years old, and so perhaps a little bit easier, you know, I’ll admit that it’s been more challenging now to come up with a single diet that suits all pallets with my 14 year old stepson now, so he’ll often, so to speak, do his own own thing. But that’s fine. I think, you know, whatever works for your family is ultimately what matters. So again, I don’t want to ramble on too long, because, you know, I know that we have other panelists that we’d like to hear from, but I would say that, you know, that those have been the the key parts of my journey. And I think every journey is very different. But you know, I think that the most important part for me about the OMS program altogether has been the hope and optimism that it gave me at a time that was really quite dark in all honesty. And, you know, and I think that it’s such a blueprint for healthy living, regardless of whether or not you have multiple sclerosis, that that’s the part that really clicked for my husband and he, you know, has been trying to embrace a plant based diet as much as possible, both for health reasons as well as it feels passionately about climate change and other reasons like that. So it really, ultimately is a win win. And my the last thought that I’ll offer, too, is that, as a cardiologist, it has completely reshaped the way that I think about caring for my patients, as I’ve come to recognize that, of course, diet has such an important impact on cardiovascular disease, which is my area of focus, and so I am now very keen to discuss the advantages of a predominantly plant based diet with my patients. Whenever they’re interested.

 

Laura Crowder  17:20

Thank you so much, Michelle, that was so interesting. And for now, I’d like to welcome Vicky to the virtual stage. And interestingly, you ended by talking about the hope and the optimism that the program has offered you. And I couldn’t agree more with that, and I think Vicky now is going to speak to us a little bit more about that and about the pillar of Change Your Life for life. So welcome, Vicky.

 

Vickie Hadge  17:52

Well, I’ll give you a little bit of background about me and my MS journey. I had my first discernible relapse in 2006 but I wasn’t diagnosed at that time. They did suspect MS, but luckily they said, let’s take a wait and see approach. But it definitely got my attention. So I actually started changing my diet lifestyle back in 2006 and I felt much better and didn’t have another relapse for 10 years, when I was finally diagnosed in 2017 is when I found the Overcoming MS program, and I was already vegetarian at that point, and had already embraced some lifestyle changes, so it was a natural fit for me and also for my family. I was lucky enough that my husband was vegetarian as well. He actually went vegetarian before I did. And you know, the making changes for our family health was very important to me as well. I’m a mom of two children, and we naturally worry about our children, so started implementing some changes into the dietary household. Like Laura, sometimes they weren’t very well received. You can’t force it on them. But started implementing more changes into the diet, and realized that I wasn’t as healthy as I thought I was, when I started reading the research of Roy Swank and George Jelinek and looking at the food that I was eating as a vegetarian, a lot of it was vegetarian junk food, and a lot of it was highly processed and Franken food and fake foods. So there was a point where I had to embrace even more changes for myself and overcoming the thought of deprivation, the restrictiveness that was a challenge for me. Thinking that I could never have cream in my coffee again was shocking. I didn’t think I could do that, but I was able to do it. And, you know, soon after I started making the changes, I realized that it’s not a restrictive diet. There’s over 20,000 kinds of edible plants out there, and my diet is more diverse now than it was before I started following the OMS program. So it has been eye opening to me to see how much healthier I can be and how much more diverse my diet can be, so it was a little challenging for my extended family. They were they were really concerned that I was restricting my diet and not getting the nutrients I needed, you know, the protein fear, and it took a while to bring them along. They were really concerned, but you’d spend seven plus years that I’ve been eating this way, and they see how well I’m doing, so everyone’s pretty much on board and supportive. You know, for practicality of changing our life, for life, it’s sometimes it’s not easy. When going to family events or going out to restaurants with others, it can be a challenge. So when I do go to family events, I always offer to bring food, and I bring a main dish and a salad or a main dish and a dessert to share. So that makes it easier for the host of the event, they don’t have to worry so much about what they’re going to feed me. And I realized with going out to restaurants, I don’t have to go to vegan restaurants. I can go to almost any restaurant that’s not a chain restaurant, long as they are actually cooking food, not just heating and serving. And I look at the entrees, and I see what side dishes they have for those, and many times, I can create a delicious meal, just picking the side dishes from the entrees. So that made it much easier to make changes for life. You know, I don’t have to restrict going out with friends or celebrating with family. So that was very helpful for me as well. And I think for the vitamin D, that was important. I asked my kids, you know, please start taking vitamin D. It’s important for your future health. And I think everybody can benefit from having vitamin D. And one of the other supplements that I do take is B 12. Because I am vegan, I don’t do the fish. And when doing my own reading on it, I found that almost everybody is low in B 12, even the omnivores and the meat eaters. So B 12 is a supplement that I take as well. Dr Michelle, being a cardiologist, you might appreciate this. My husband has some heart disease. So we went out to the Cleveland Clinic, and we attended the Dr Esselstyn Reverse Heart Disease with Diet program, which was another great thing to do. I encourage everyone to, you know, keep learning and keep going to events and getting educated on the benefits of eating this way. It’s not just for MS, it’s for overall health. So that’s a bit about me and my story. If you have any questions about how we got here and how my family’s doing, I’d be happy to answer those.

 

Laura Crowder  23:08

Thank you so much Vicky, now I’d like to welcome Ann to share a little bit about her journey.

 

Ann Halstead  23:15

I actually worked in health services for many years as a nurse and then as a health visitor, which was with families and focused on family health and health education. So it was a shock to be diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS in 2012 particularly because I had a close family member with MS, who was becoming increasingly unwell. I was interested in what healthy lifestyle choices might be out there, but the neurologist I saw told me to not go and look at anything. Don’t go and Google MS. And I was in a bit of a state of shock, so I didn’t do that, and I regret it now, because I did some digging around eventually, and found Professor Swank’s studies, and listened to what the MS nurses were telling me, which was they advised going on a low saturated fat diet, which backed up, which was they gave me the Swank reference. So I did some digging around in the medical literature, but not to any great extent. And I didn’t find OMS because it isn’t present in the medical literature, but my close family member was very becoming quite disabled, and my daughter actually found an article about OMS. I was working up until around 2017 when I had to stop working part time as a health visitor becauseI was becoming fatigued and it was becoming difficult to manage at work, and I was able to take early retirement. But my daughter found this while I was signed off sick at that time, and I read it just and immediately knew that I could do this, because I was already doing some of it, and it was the first positive, optimistic thing I had ever seen about MS. I think that was what really spoke to me, was you can do something about it. You can look after yourself. You can help yourself to heal. So I went on when there was some retreats, announced I went on one in 2018 and became an ambassador for my local area in England, where I live. My family have been very accommodating of my changing diet. My husband and son, adult son are at home with me. My daughter who found the program lives lives away, but we have family meals together. Most are completely OMS compliant, so I’m not cooking when people aren’t cooking two meals. I don’t do all the cooking. My husband and son cook as well, but we do have a meal, probably on a Sunday, where they have another option for their main meal, and we, we combine, so we can share different parts of the meal, and they can perhaps have some meat or chicken. And I’m having a nut roast, for instance, and we share the vegetables and roast potatoes, OMS friendly roast potatoes. So I enjoy cooking, and adapting recipes that I find to be OMS friendly, my husband and son also find that my daughter’s better at finding recipes. I must say, they all cook things that I present to them. I find that to be working for us, because everybody can eat together, which I think, really think is important, that you don’t isolate yourself to be different. And I enjoyed what Vicky was saying about having to take food to other people. So to be able to socialize is really important. So taking food, taking a main course when you’re going out anywhere, is a great relief to a host or hostess that I will take something that I can eat, or a dessert that I can eat, but that everybody else can eat too. I find that does work very well. And so, yeah, that that is me. I enjoy the cooking and I enjoy being able to be part of this community.

 

Laura Crowder  28:11

Such a lovely way to finish. Anne, me too. And speaking of community, I’m hoping that we can welcome back Vicky and Michelle for a discussion now.

 

Dr Michelle O’Donoghue  28:22

I have to say, you know, Vickie mentioned, for instance, the work of Caldwell Esselstyn at the Cleveland Clinic. You know, I think that once I started reading more about the benefits of a plant based diet, it really did open up an entire world where I’ve learned about the work of some of these other individuals, and actually, I have come to know Dr Esselstyn quite well along the way, because, you know, I was just very interested to engage in discussions with all these different folks. But the reason I mention it is because it also has really just looked upside down for me the way that I think about cooking and making meals. You know, I grew up in a typical plate design where there was a piece of meat and there was maybe a vegetable on the side and a potato or something like that. But, you know, now I just think about constructing meals in a different way. And I’ve just found so many great recipes out there that nobody feels like they’re suffering. You know, I sometimes will. My husband will come with me to just a fantastic vegan restaurant, and he’ll say, my goodness, I would eat like this all the time if all restaurants could serve food this way. So I think that one great thing that we have nowadays, too, is that grocery stores have terrific labels on products. It’s much easier to know what you’re buying. And the internet has been such a tremendous resource for being able to pull together recipes, you know? So I’ll you know, I know that my stepson, for instance, likes the the pasta, the pizza. I can easily make those meals when he’s with us. My son, my three year old son, it’s interesting. He’s grown up so much on a plant based diet that when he’s when somebody offers him meat, he finds the texture very odd. So she doesn’t even want to have it. But, you know, we just, we just make it work.

 

Laura Crowder  30:26

Ann, Vicky, if you got anything, anything to add to that. Any tips with your own children?

 

Vickie Hadge  30:32

Yeah, with, with my family. You know, many times when I’m talking to people about feeding my family, people say, hh, how do you cook two meals? And it’s not two meals, it’s it’s one meal with maybe, you know, my my son is now a vegetarian, but he wasn’t before, and I would put a piece of chicken on for him or a piece of meat on for him. So it was one meal with a side of meat, so it wasn’t a lot of extra cooking. And, you know, I think a lot of people think vegan food is very different from the standard American or Western diet. And it’s not, you know, I think it was Michelle that said, you know, the or no, it was Anne who said the roasted potatoes, long as they’re OMS friendly or vegan friendly potatoes. They’re potatoes. So the for me, it wasn’t really challenging. I didn’t have the mindset of two separate meals. It was a meal with a little bit extra for the the Omnivores in the house.

 

Ann Halstead  31:34

I think it was for me being able to get do a meal that can be mixed and matched with people’s preferences. But what was so interesting was that at Christmas, the family wanted to have some roast turkey, which was absolutely fine. I made a nut roast. All the vegetables were OMS friendly, but everybody wanted my my nut roast as well as the turkey, because it looked so nice and it was Herbie and interesting. So yeah, you can get them on, and they were on board anyway. But yeah, make it. Make it really interesting, and people want to try it.

 

Dr Michelle O’Donoghue  32:15

That doesn’t have to be an experience of deprivation. I think that that’s one of the great things about eating this way is that really, you can eat as much as you want in, you know, in many ways, when you’re eating plants, that there there’s no real limit in the same way as when you’re eating a traditional diet. And yeah, there just is so much selection. But like you said, You know what? When I’m making American Thanksgiving dinner for my family here in the US, I will roast a turkey for them, but I have generally found that, first of all, I have no interest in the turkey anymore whatsoever. But, you know, I just have a wonderful array of different vegan side dishes, and that’s what everyone gravitates towards.

 

Laura Crowder  33:00

Have you had any challenges? Would you say that you’ve had to overcome with your families?

 

Ann Halstead  33:07

What I found interesting was that my brother, who was a doctor, had heard of Swank. He’s becoming increasing, has become increasingly disabled with MS. And really, you know, dismissed it when I said, this is what I was doing. And I’ve just found that really sad. My family are aware of the situation with the family, and that we can, this is what we can do something about it, and it’s positive. They’re both taking vitamin both my children taking vitamin D. They both exercise regularly.

 

Vickie Hadge  33:45

I did have, initially, the first few years that I was making the changes, my extended family was concerned. They thought I was eating much too restrictive, and they thought that I was missing things out of my diet. And, you know, even some would say, Oh, the doctors say there’s no such thing as an MS diet. And there was initial resistance. They thought I was doing myself harm instead of doing good for my myself. And I had to just keep reassuring them. I know that they they were voicing concerns because they liked me and they loved me. So it was initially, it was hard when they would make comments about how restrictive my diet was, because many times, especially in the beginning, I would have to say, no, I can’t have the potatoes because there’s butter in them, or no, I can’t have that dish because it’s got cheese on it, although, like you, I missed cheese at the beginning quite a bit. So there initially was some hesitancy on my family’s part, and they were concerned. But we’ve all become educated along the way, and now they see how well I am living with my MS and how well I am overall, health wise, and they’ve come a long way and are doing well with it now.

 

Dr Michelle O’Donoghue  35:09

It’s funny with the physicians that I work with here, when I first started following a plant based diet, they really made fun of me. These are trained physicians, but they didn’t believe in the science initially. But it’s interesting that this same group of individuals have done a complete 180 on that they absolutely are strongly supportive now, of you know, the diet and lifestyle that I follow, and not just that, they’re also referring people to me, both with heart disease as well as diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, to have chats with them about lifestyle changes that they could make as well. So it, you know, it’s interesting. I think that there is always a lot of skepticism. But the key, I think, really, is to stick with it. What’s challenging for a lot of people that I’ve spoken with who have a new diagnosis of MS, or even who have had it for a long, long time, is that there’s so much out there on the internet that appears to be conflicting. And, you know, they say, gosh, we got this diet or that diet, and I’m just confused. I’m not going to do anything at all. Or alternatively, I’ll hear about people who will say, I followed it for three months and nothing seemed different. So, you know, so I stopped. And, you know, I just really want to encourage people that one, I really think that the OMS program is based in real science. It’s beneficial, not only for an autoimmune condition, but I truly believe, probably for most illnesses that that are prevalent in our society, a large number of them are probably diet based in some way, in some way, shape or form, and or are sort of fueled along by by diet, sort of like so I would really encourage people to think about if they’re going to do this, to sort of try to do it all in I know that people talk about sort of putting their toe in the water, and that’s fine to start, but I I think it’s something that you really need to embrace. And you know, and I think Vickie and Ann, like you’ve said as well, and Laura, that once you really make the dietary change, for instance, your palate changes with it. Eventually, you know, if you put a piece of steak in front of you at this point, I would have no interest in it whatsoever. What you find apetizing just ends up changing.

 

Laura Crowder  37:44

I just want to say a huge thank you to you all, Professor Michelle O’Donoghue, Vicky, Ann, thank you so much for being a part of our first webinar of the New Living well with MS season.

 

Overcoming MS  37:59

Thank you for listening to this episode of Living Well with MS, please check out this episode’s show notes at overcoming ms.org/podcast, you’ll find useful links and bonus information there. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode, and please rate and review the show to help others find us. This show is made possible by the Overcoming MS community. Our theme music is by Claire and Nev Dean. Our host is Geoff Allix. Our videos are edited by Lorna Greenwood and I’m the producer Regina Beach. Have questions or ideas to share, email us at podcast, at overcoming ms.org we’d love to hear from you. The Living Well with MS podcast is for private, non commercial use, and exists to educate and inspire our community of listeners. We do not offer medical advice. For medical advice, please contact your doctor or other licensed healthcare professional.