So I am watching CSI New York on CBS tv. The potential suspect claims he didn't meet the girl who died because he decided not to "waste" his time. Why? He said "I'm dying. I have acute multiple sclerosis." All they show is his face twitching. Give me a break! Anyone feel like writing to CBS and complaining? I don't have the time......

"Malignant MS: Also known as Marburg's Variant and Acute Multiple Sclerosis. This is a label given to forms of MS where the disease progresses very rapidly from onset leading to severe disability within a relatively short period of time. Fortunately, this form of MS is extremely rare."

http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/whatisms.html

There was a lady on a Montel Williams program that had "acute" MS, and she died within about year. It's a very BAD MS.

Cherie

Wow this is really scarry, I didn't know this? I always tell people that MS sucks, but I am not going to die from it?

yeah i have seen that one, and promtly let my tv set know that is total bs lol, tv did not answer me

and there is a episode of house where he questions someone for giving a 100 mg of steroids and says it will kill him, I should be dead, a few hundred times by now

I wonder if they should have differentiated between "acute" and "not-acute" MS. Just so as to not freak out new MSers who might have been watching the show.

They could have had the CSI's have a discussion between the acute MS and the other types. Could have educated people about the disease a bit.

But, the Network probably wanted to put more scenes of the actresses showing their cleavage rather than educate people about a sometimes (most of the time) misunderstood disease.

Personally, I don't pay much attention to fictional TV shows when they mention MS. They don't really use it in the proper context, anyway.

Even "House", which I usually enjoy, uses it as a diagnostic prop in the script, in my opinion. I guess we should just be glad that MS is making the airwaves on some TV programs.

Like they say..."Bad publicity is better than no publicity". I don't think that a letter writing campaign will change the networks' perceived views on this.

But that's my opinion.

Rare and accurate as it might be, I still think it's an unfortunate portrayal. I'd guess that the use of the word "acute" was either accidental or that the writer knew or knows someone with this type of MS. But to the general public, they don't hear "acute" -- they hear the phrase "MS" and the word "dying".

I'm a little sensitive to this because this is exactly why I choose not to disclose -- the misperceptions about MS would adversely affect me professionally. TV is perhaps the biggest culprit in erroneously "teaching" the public about MS.

There are varying degrees of MS, just like there are with many diseases. Some people have Crohns and all they ever need to do is change their diets slightly to manage it . . . yet others have to have 1/2 their insides removed.

I don't think it hurts for people to see the spectrum of this disease, and that's why I like to see those with benign "run" the MS races, as well as those in a wheelchair (if they can). There are 'many faces of MS'.

When some people hear "I have MS", they anticipate me in a wheelchair and incapable of moving more then one finger on one hand (like my friend's husband, after two years with this disease). Others think that it shouldn't affect my life at all . . . "it's all attitude" .

MS is whatever it is, to each of us as individuals . . . and there are going to be misunderstandings no matter how it is presented.

Cherie

The only show i watched, that even came close to portraying MS as close to real, as a TV show would or could be, was "West Wing"

A bunch of my Dayton, Ohio neighbors, starred in the show....Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe and the tall, Women Press Secretary...all dayton natives,and I knew MS and RL's families. MS went to HS with my older Brother.