now, I am generous with myself, and I am better off than most, but even I am NOT going to drop $300 for a juicer! If I was going to spend $300 it would be for a nice kitchen aide mixer with a few attachments. I did get the food Ninja, which does a great job! I got the old model, since the new one is due out anytime now, the old model is on clearance every where for half price!

I do love that he told such a passionate tale about his own struggle with MS, and as a Marine that was touching. I just wonder. If someone like him who has so much money at his disposal, and so many gadgets to help him cant get relief....what shot do I have? He has personal trainers, dieticians, cooks, money to go away and relax. money to see the best MDs. If he can do all that and still decline...it scares the peed pants right off me.

Sheesh, ain't that the truth. I wonder if he's tried LDN. Probably not, it's not expensive enough..:D

I think I had MS Hug once, during a flare. Lasted about 2 hours. Felt like labor pains. Could that be what it was?

~ Faith

The hug that I felt really did feel like there was something wrapped around my chest and stomach and squeezing me. It was horribly painful. Like I was being tortured.

I ended up stealing my mom's TENS unit and tasered myself with it to kill the pain.

Zapping myself with two AA batteries felt a lot better than whatever the MS trolls in my head were zapping me with.

I finally managed some time to watch the Montel videos. He seems to have been hit hard in his emotional area of the brain. Some PWMS cry without reason, of burst out laughing without a funny thing going on. It hits us all different, as we all know.

As for the MS Hug, I have it all the time, worse at night, and it even really gets more painful when I relapse. I thought is was described more of muscles in spasms rather than freezing of the diaphragm. That threw me off. It feels like labor, yes, as it starts and gets worse and then let's go, on to start again. Like contractions, a squeezing of real tightness, not a freezing up to me.

You think you can't breathe but you can. Even if more lightly. If I take a bigger breath at that time it hurts more. That is why I feel it is muscle spasm related. My first MS Specialist said it was spasticity. A tightening of chest, rib muscles from the back all around.

Some have it on the waist, the head area like a tight band, or even the arm or leg. The ribs seems worse for me, like my ribs might crack.

That nasty Hug and the burning (like Montel described) I have non stop, are my big issues besides, the fatigue if not carefully spaced over the day. Rest a must too, even if not a nap.

That's my take on the video. They were interesting Sally Thanks!

Thx, Lady. I've never heard anyone else describe the Hug as similar to labor pains, so, I was never sure that's what I'd experienced. But, yes, it was very contraction-like. Came and went, every few minutes.

Spasticity is an interesting description. I've experienced that in my left foot from time to time, years ago, following flares. And, it also is a tightening of the muscles.

The difference for me, with spasticity, is that something always seemed to trigger the spasicity in my foot (getting up, from either a recling or sitting position), and, when it stopped, it was over. Did not continue every few minutes for hours, like labor contractions. But, otherwise, very similar.

~ Faith