A new campaign is making the invisible symptoms of multiple sclerosis visible.
Keilor Downs resident Adriana Grasso is one of nine people taking part in a ‘Seeing MS’ campaign, which pairs MS sufferers with photographers to try to give more “exposure” to nine of the invisible symptoms of the disease.
For Ms Grasso, 29, that symptom is numb- ness. “I have no sensation of touch in my hands. I think my brain knows what things feel like so I imagine that I’m touching things … but things like hot water, holding glass and holding paper, I find them really difficult.
“When people have other illnesses, you can see that they’re sick … I feel like people can sympathise with them more than MS [sufferers] because we do look fine.”
Ms Grasso was diagnosed in 2011 after she experienced what felt like electric shocks in her feet when she moved her neck, and there was numbness in her torso.
“At the time, I just thought, wow, I’ve done something really bad to my neck … and then when I was diagnosed with MS other things stared to make sense, like why I’d been so tired for the last few years, why my personality and behaviour had gone downhill,” she said.
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disease that randomly attacks the central nervous system and stops the brain from communicating with the rest of the body.
There is no known cure.
Ms Grasso is ambassador for this year’s MS Walk and Fun Run on Sunday, June 1. Last year she raised almost $150,000 for MS research.
