Mike Knight is a longtime freelance writer, journalist and marketing communications professional who has written for a variety of publications over the past 20+ years including dailies, weeklies, monthlies and inflight magazines and now, MS News Today and also his own site, mikeknightwrites.com. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife of 31 years and two cats and a bicycle he refuses to quit riding. After nearly 20 years of disparate illnesses, he was diagnosed with a progressive form of Multiple Sclerosis in 2013.
Not long ago, I dreamed I was running. Again. It was the first time I’d had the dream in a while. It was always the same, “Been Caught Stealing,” ... Read more
“The reason you can’t keep your shorts up,” the orthopedist said, “is because you don’t have enough butt anymore.” It was my first visit with this doctor, and I ... Read more
I’m not taking all the medication I’ve been prescribed. Chances are, you’re not either. Medication nonadherence, or not taking medicine as prescribed, is a thing — a big thing. According ... Read more
Third in a series. Read parts one and two. In March 2018, I began a personal research project — quest if you will — to assess how functional electrical ... Read more
Second in a series. Read part one. The thing about functional electronic stimulation (FES) devices, at least to me, is waiting for them to engage. No matter how much ... Read more
April is my month. The weather gets warmer, the world gets greener, and everything just generally lightens up. I was born in April. My wife and I were married ... Read more
It is noon on Wednesday, and I am sitting in a chair in our living room. My wife holds two books against my hips, one on either side, while ... Read more
Living your best life with MS often means fighting the disease and its many symptoms on multiple fronts. Multiple Sclerosis News Today forums were created to let you learn ... Read more
You can’t swing a sweaty workout towel these days without hitting an article or report about the health benefits of exercise to people with MS. “Exercise is quickly being ... Read more
Between fatigue, muscle weakness, imbalance and other problems associated with MS, living with the disease often demands a lot of effort and energy, even for the simplest of tasks. ... Read more
“Today we’re going to talk about the Four Ps,” Stephanie says. “You’ve probably heard of these already, but let’s go through them anyway.” I look at her the way ... Read more
A whopping 43 percent of all people with MS have some type of anxiety disorder. Worse, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, “Anxiety is perhaps the most ... Read more
Gait and balance issues and MS go together like peanut butter and chocolate. At least they do to me. In one way or another, they’ve been in the foreground of ... Read more
If you have MS, chances are really good that you have MS-related fatigue — about 80 percent of people with MS do according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society ... Read more
An estimated 85 percent of people with MS experience some type of spasticity due to the disease, according to a recent report (p/w) published in Multiple Sclerosis and Related ... Read more
Nothing resets your thinking like bouncing your head off a hardwood floor. At least, for me. It was about 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, and we were shutting ... Read more
What I’m about to write will sound like I am tooting my own horn. I’m not. Really. But something is working for me in my battle to navigate the ... Read more
Like a lot of people with MS, I took part in the “Great Ocrevus Rush of 2017,” with the fanfare surrounding the release of the first therapy in the ... Read more
Effectively managing MS may require ongoing appointments with multiple specialists on your health care team — including neurologists, physical and occupational therapists and others. And it goes without saying ... Read more
I am on “house arrest.” Sort of. Let me explain. Earlier this year, I wrote Large and In Charge: Building a Better MS Care Team, a column about my ... Read more
According to a 2015 report, there are 43.5 million caregivers in the United States today — roughly six million more people than the population of California. And according to a ... Read more
Though I don’t always use it, I take my cane with me every time we go shopping. I can still shuffle to the cart pickup and drop-off without it ... Read more
Stop for a second and think about this: 2.3 billion smart phone users worldwide will download an estimated 268 billion mobile apps in 2017. Three quarters of adults in ... Read more
Face it: Understanding MS isn’t easy — even if you have it. There’s no known cause, no cure, no predictability in progression, and while there are common symptoms and ... Read more
With the year-end holiday season hurtling towards us, now is the time many of us start planning to hit the road — making way to see family, friends and ... Read more
Some months ago my wife and I went out for dinner at our favorite sushi place. As is frequently the custom at sushi restaurants, the table setting included chopsticks. ... Read more
I have every single malady associated with MS. I’m absolutely positive. Because whenever I find out about a new one, or a new study that says we don’t sleep ... Read more
“I’m sorry, these files take forever to copy,” the woman at the registration desk says, breaking the silence that had settled between us while she uploaded MRI scans from ... Read more
“What else is going on?” Matt, our family doctor of more than 15 years, asked. It was at the end of a mid-August appointment, one I’d made due to ... Read more
Footwear and shoes and journeys have been in my info stream (and on my mind) a lot lately. First, I stumbled onto a very fine column about shoes and ... Read more
The plastic mustard bottle hurtles toward the kitchen floor. Like a statue I stand, mouth agape, as it somersaults in slow-motion through space. Only seconds before, I’d removed the ... Read more
I have written multiple iterations of this column trying to keep pace with the disastrous healthcare bills being presented first in the U.S. House of Representatives and now the ... Read more
“O-cree-VUS,” I said, clearly and naturally into the headset. I had recently purchased the device for use with the voice-to-text software I need to type (MS, right-hand weakness, loss ... Read more
Though my first brush with MS came in 2000 or so, I wasn’t diagnosed until December 2013 with primary progressive MS. Shortly after the diagnosis, I began scouring the internet for information about ... Read more
Earlier this year, I visited a physical therapist I’d seen way back in my running days to devise a home workout routine that could help me address not only ... Read more
