About Stuart Schlossman    -  Updated   12.16.09

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MS Patient, Writer, Blog writer, Editor of Stu’s Views and MS Related News and Founder of the ‘MS Views and News’ organization

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My name is Stuart Schlossman and I Have MS. Relapse Remitting to be more specific.

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I live just outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I have been married since 1988 to Patrice, and have two grown daughters and three grandchildren. When I am not resting I have three dogs that keep me busy and I volunteer as a co-facilitator for the National MS Society, as well as for MS Views and News.
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I was diagnosed with relapse-remitting MS in December 1998 after several years of symptoms including headaches, blurred vision, fatigue, vertigo, carpal tunnel syndrome, Bell's Palsy and leg stiffness.
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Having gone through the process of checking for a brain tumor or other severe problems, MS was finally diagnosed. Although I was relieved to learn that I didn’t have a tumor, I was still dumbfounded and was severely depressed for many weeks.

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After meeting other people with MS, I felt I had to help those whose symptoms were worse than my own. I don’t see MS as a disease – for me it is an illness, one that I had to do something about. I was once in denial and then realized that I was "chosen" to have this illness.  Chosen for the mouthpiece that I have and the desire to help others.
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I formed an independent support group but wanted to achieve more. I contacted the National MS Society and a year later became the Committee Chair of the South Florida, Coral Gables MS Walk event. Every year my MS Walk Team, Team Hot Shots, has raised lots of money over the years. It is great to know that a part of this money is being used to fund patient programs in the local area, and a percentage is also used to fund research. For me, the Walk is both therapeutic and empowering. After Chairing the Coral Gables walk for (5) years, I went on to chair the Ft. Lauderdale walk for a couple of years. Last year, was my last, in chairing walks as I have found that with the time that my body allows, I need to concentrate on what I do best.
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In 2003, with my cognitive functioning worsening, and fatigue becoming an even greater issue, I found it increasingly hard to concentrate and carry out my job as part-owner of a business and in April 2003 I stopped working. This wasn’t easy but it did mean I had time to help others with MS.
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In 2005, I decided that I would like to do more so I designed and helped to organize The MS Health Expo for the National MS Society's chapter here in South Florida. This first event took place in January 2006 and has continued to help many affected by MS each year. Most beneficial is the panel of MS professionals that lead a Question and Answer (Q&A) session.

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I have co-facilitated a local MS support group since the early 2000's. This support group has become more of an Education Program and continues to meet once a month. Guest speakers are invited to discuss the issues and topics faced by the members. Topics have included a wide range of needs by the MS patient.  For me, the group is about educating and empowering people with MS and their caregivers to make the most of their lives through better management of the illness. Each year, we have our holiday party and Santa (ahem) comes for a visit to put needed smiles upon those that attend this yearly function.

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Sorry to be jumping around with the context but  In approx 2005 - (my memory is horrible so I really do not know if 2004 or 2005 ), I began writing archiving information in a blog called Stu's Views and MS Related News, which was later superseded by the current version, Stu's Views & M.S. News.  It is the blog postings that provide most of the information found in each week's e-Newsletter.

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"Stu's Views and MS Related News", is an e-Newsletter that I began sending to just those involved with the support group in about 2001. Then more and more were learning of the information that I was sending each day and eventually I had to stop sending daily messages as the information just continued to surge (via my knowledge of the internet) and the amount of people asking to be registered climbed to such heights that it made it impossible to send the information daily. In approx 2005 I had to begin only sending the newsletter once per week as the information was clogging people's inboxes as I was one of the few, sending MS related informational e-Newsletters as that time. Now there are many organizations doing the same thing and many have coined my phrase: "e-Newsletter".

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Recently when looking at notes of mine so that I could write this profile, I noticed that back in 2007 when I was doing an interview for the MS International Federation (MSIF), I reported that 900 people were receiving my e-Newsletter.  However as of today’s writing (December 16, 2009), I can say that I am now sending this e-Newsletter to e-recipients in (58) countries and upwards of 6000 are reading it directly from me, each week.

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In approx 2008 I created my website, along with my brother who is the brain behind being a webmaster. It was first called MS Views and Related News, as was the original name of the organization that I founded. Last year though, with Board Approval, we shorted the name of the organization to MS Views and News( http://www.msviewsandnews.org).

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I and/or “MS Views and News”, can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Live Journal and Linked-In.

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Monthly, our site is viewed well in excess of 100,000 times by people from all over the globe. Oh yes, I do love the internet. My vision for this organization is for MS Views and News to globally raise the level of education and awareness to millions of people impacted by Multiple Sclerosis.

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I want to empower people with knowledge via my website, e-Newsletters, blog and by providing education programs that I know as a patient, is needed by my peers.

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For that which I have been doing, others are taking notice. Many large MS organizations, such as the National MS Society, The MS Foundation, The Heuga Ctr, (now known as Can Do MS) and others have asked and continue to ask me to post items to my blog with regards to their organizations or with regards to topic information that they want greater exposure. In reward I guess (best to say) some have done interviews of me, like the MSIF did in 2007 and the MSF has written of me a few times.

Most recently, the National MS Society added this to their website:  “Ex-Salesman Uses Net to Inform, Persuade” -  Posted in April 2009 to the National MS Society's website.

Click here: http://www.nationalmssociety.org/online-community/personal-stories/stuart-schlossman/index.aspx

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At one time and not too long ago, I was still extremely active. But the disease has caused me to make major modifications to my lifestyle, which I am sure that many with Multiple Sclerosis can understand. My fatigue hits hard each day and then this seems to cause secondary symptoms such as vertigo, blurred vision or the annoying tingling. I live with headaches most days and otherwise have varying pains, including skeletal pain, cramps and spasticity. I cannot type for long as my fingers cramp or ache. I cannot sit for too long or my body stiffens. I cannot stand for long or walk too much because I lose balance. Fatigue strikes everyday. Usually at about the same time, but sometimes it fools me and arrives a little earlier or a little later, depending on my activities.

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Fortunately, I do what I do, from the privacy of my home office. I stop as often as needed to take breaks, take a nap, and read  or to just play with my dogs

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I have used many of the different MS medications and advocate their usage for all MS patients.

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What may good for one patient may not be for another. Hence the reason for different products such as Tylenol, Advil and Motrin. Same principal, behind this.  All who have Multiple Sclerosis should be using one of the FDA approved medication to delay progression of their disease.

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My current motto is: "Why Accept Disease Progression"?  Especially when there are so many choices, thanks to broadening MS research.

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I hope that one day there is a cure for all of us living with MS and then a way to be found to reverse whatever damage has been done to our bodies and minds by this illness.

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Dr. King once proclaimed "I have a dream".

Well, Stuart also has a dream.  My dream is a world in which all men and women with MS can live independent of this disease (illness).

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The information found above was updated by me (Stuart Schlossman) on December 16, 2009

Since December 2009 - Our newsletter as of this mention (April 2010 ) is now being received in (72) countries

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This Interview was posted to the National MS Society's website in April 2009

Ex-Salesman Uses Net to Inform, Persuade

Apathy perplexes Stuart Schlossman. The way he sees it, information about MS abounds. So why don’t more people read it — and heed it?

Schlossman is a former salesman who left his family’s industrial sewing-machine parts company in 2003 due to MS-related fatigue. (It took years to figure that out: on business trips he’d wind up in Latin American hospitals where the doctors couldn’t understand his symptoms and he couldn’t understand what they were saying.)

Since then Schlossman has dedicated himself to collecting every piece of information about MS he can. Thousands of people worldwide view his Web site, MS Views and News, and associatedblogand e-newsletter. When event planners want a good crowd for an MS event in South Florida, they ask Schlossman to spread the word.

Still, with several thousand people known to be living with MS in the region, it frustrates Schlossman that only a few dozen typically show up.

“Why aren’t they attending? Some people say, well, it’s hot or it’s muggy or it’s a rainy day. There’s always an excuse.”

Even worse, in his view, are people who won’t give the disease-modifying drugs a try because they just don’t feel like it — and doctors who don’t know enough about MS to insist.

“Most people it seems really don’t see MS neurologists,” he said. “Most people are seeing — I don’t really know, maybe just their primary. Could be a veterinarian for all I know. All I know is that many, especially from rural areas, are not receiving proper information....

“I know people who say, ‘There’s only a 30% chance you won’t have relapses, so why should I take the medication?’ I know a lot of these people who are now in wheelchairs or in scooters, who 10 years ago were walking just like I am.”

Schlossman once put himself on a “medication vacation” — sort of an unscientific, one-man clinical trial. The experience deepened his belief that shunning treatment, even if there’s only a small chance it will help, is nuts.

“I was playing golf again, something I hadn’t been able to do in years. Then five or six weeks later, when I was driving home from something, the world went into a spin that wouldn’t stop, and I was lucky to be able to pull over and stop the car and pray for my life. I learned my lesson. The medication was obviously working. So now I had to wait to get it back into my system. It was from March to September ‘til I could stop using a cane again.”

Drug or no, fatigue remains an issue and Schlossman figures his days of working full-time are over. Typing hurts his hands, so he takes frequent breaks from his computer to swim, nap or walk his dogs. But his sense of determination never quits. In fact he recently requested IRS permission to turn MS Views and News into a nonprofit corporation. If that happens he can begin accepting donations to optimize his Web site and begin applying for education grants, so that MS Views and News can offer locally based education programs for people with MS and care partners.

“I love to communicate,” said Schlossman, who lives with his wife Patrice and travels as often as possible to visit relatives in North Carolina and New York.

While Schlossman obviously doesn’t like how MS has changed his body, he likes how his response to the disease has changed his outlook:

“I feel like the pearly white gates will be open for me when the time comes. It fills my day and it’s just made me a different person. You didn’t want to live with me years ago when I was obnoxious and abrasive. Now I’m obnoxious and abrasive — and a humanitarian.”

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