Seven charities which support people with Multiple Sclerosis have united behind the message of MS Awareness Week – #MSMakesMe
The charities – MS Society, MS Trust, Overcoming MS, MS Together, Shift.ms, MS-UK and MS National Therapy Centres – have all come together for the first time to shine a spotlight on MS.
This MS Awareness Week – from April 24 to 30 – the hashtag #MSMakesMe is being used to highlight the diversity of living with the condition.
While more than 130,000 people in the UK are currently living with MS, its symptoms and impact vary greatly between each person.
Through #MSMakesMe, people with MS, their families, friends and carers – as well as healthcare professionals and researchers – are urged to share their thoughts, feelings and emotions to create a community and conversation on social media.
For Jenni, she has joined the #MSMakesMe campaign because she wants to raise awareness about how varied the condition is for everybody.
She had her first MS relapse in 2021, where she experienced pins and needles in her left leg for a two week period. She had another relapse the following year with pins and needles and weakness in her right arm, and was finally diagnosed with MS in January 2023.
“MS affects everybody differently, and even the diagnosis can affect people in different ways,” she says.
“I found the diagnosis overwhelming, but it wasn’t until I started to discuss my treatment plan that I really felt the emotional weight of my diagnosis. That’s when I started to realise how much my life was about to change.”
Jenni would use her hashtag to express that #MSMakesMe worry about the people around me.
“It’s not just me I think about, I worry about the people around me and what impact it might have on them,” she says.
“Some people haven’t reacted how I thought they would and I’ve had to deal with that loss as well as the diagnosis.
“The MS Society has been a huge support to me so far – it’s where I found all my support and information after that first conversation with my GP. It inspired me to do something to give back to them, so I’m doing a 5k fundraiser in September at the Bedford Running Festival.
“I wanted to turn my diagnosis into something more positive and help fund research which will help everyone who has MS.
“Keeping fit and healthy really helps with managing MS so training for the 5k is a way of improving my health and proving to myself that I can still do everything I could do before. It’s helped me feel much more optimistic about my future.”
Nick Moberly, chief executive of MS Society, says: “We’re so proud to have come together with six other amazing MS charities to launch #MSMakesMe. This campaign has been shaped by insights from the MS community, and we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has shared their story.
“We know MS can be painful and relentless, but it can also be hopeful and transformative for some people. Through #MSMakesMe we want to show that no two people’s MS is the same and that it can impact everyone differently.
“Most importantly, we hope this will open up conversations about the reality of living with a chronic condition and signpost people to the support us, and the other charities offer.”
“For MS Awareness Week this year, we’re excited to work with six other MS charities for the first time, to really highlight just how diverse the experience of living with MS can be,” adds David Martin, chief executive of MS Trust.
“By joining together we can make our voices louder and shine a brighter light on the impact Multiple Sclerosis can have on people and their families.”
