RealTalk MS

The current clinical language used to describe multiple sclerosis hasn't kept pace with modern neuroscience—and clinging to outdated categories can stall treatment decisions, muddy research, and obscure what people living with MS actually experience. This week, we're exploring why it's time to modernize how we define and discuss the disease course, grounded in underlying biology rather than superficial clinical labels.

Joining the conversation is Dr. Peter Calabresi, who chaired the pivotal session "Biological Disease Course Descriptors" at MS Toronto 2026, to break down the latest consensus, what biological descriptors mean for day-to-day clinical care, and how updating ou...

Our coverage of MSToronto 2026 continues this week with two important conversations. First, we'll hear from Dr. Jeffrey Cohen about the latest clinical findings on CAR-T cell therapy as a potential treatment for MS. Then, Dr. Robert Fox will update us on the global research portfolio being driven by the International Progressive MS Alliance.

And we have to talk about Christina Applegate. By now, the news of her misdiagnosis isn't really news. But we have some suggestions for how you might want to process that news.

We have a lot to talk about. Are you ready...

Last week, about 8,000 MS researchers and clinicians arrived in Toronto, Canada, for MSToronto 2026, the joint meeting of the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in MS and the European Committee for Treatment and Research in MS, and the largest MS research conference in the world.

As the meeting adjourned, the National MS Society's Chief Research and Medical Affairs Officer, Dr. Bruce Bebo, joined me to share some of the presentations and announcements that he found particularly important.

My RealTalk MS teammate, Kristine Werner Ozug, also joined me in Toronto. Drawing on her own journey with MS, Kristine...

Welcome to a special episode of RealTalk MS and The ECTRIMS Podcast! MS Toronto 2026 concluded with the event we were most looking forward to -- Patient Community Day -- where some of the top MS experts in the world broke down the research presented over the course of the 3-day meeting and answered questions from people living with MS in easy-to-understand English.

In this special episode, Professor Peter Feys, an MS rehabilitation expert from Hasselt University in Belgium, and Karen Jacoby, who lives with MS and serves as an MSCanada Ambassador, stepped off the stage at Patient...

Jan Janisch-Hanzlik was the first MS patient to receive CAR T-cell therapy as part of a clinical trial. We met Jan last year, in episode 424 of RealTalk MS, when she gave us a first-hand report on how she was responding to this treatment.

This week, Jan is back with an update on how she's responding to CAR T-cell therapy one year later.

We're just two weeks away from the U.S. midterm elections. We're sharing some resources that will help you get ready to vote.

And we'll remind you that MSToronto 2026 begins tomorrow...

What happens when you're diagnosed with a chronic, unpredictable condition just as your career is taking off? That's exactly what happened to my guest, Dana Foote.

This week, Dana joins us to share her journey from hiding her MS diagnosis as a young auditor at one of the largest accounting organizations in the world to becoming National Managing Partner for Audit & Assurance Operations and a leader in the MS community.

We'll also update you on the status of a disease-modifying therapy that has been submitted to the FDA for review as a potential treatment for...

Whether it's walking into a room and blanking on why you're there, struggling to pull up a word that's right on the tip of your tongue, or losing track of daily tasks, cognitive fatigue and brain fog can turn simple routines into exhausting hurdles.

What makes cognitive changes particularly challenging is their invisibility. They don't show up on a routine check-in like mobility issues do. Family members might misread them as distraction. Employers might see them as disengagement. And all too often, clinicians don't have immediate, actionable tools to offer beyond standard advice.

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Most people don't think about home accessibility until mobility changes force the conversation. But what if you decide to take control of the unknown and design your living space for whatever the future might bring?

My guest, Sarah Timmerman, explains how she took total control of her future by designing and building what she calls The House That MS Built—a home engineered from the foundation up to future-proof her independence through smart, universal design and relentless self-advocacy.

We'll also tell you about a research team that identified 4 biomarkers that, together, can help a neurologist un...

RealTalk MS is celebrating our ninth anniversary, and we're marking the milestone with a special guest! Dr. Tim Coetzee, President and CEO of the National MS Society, returns to the show for a candid, forward-looking conversation about why today represents one of the most promising moments for advancing MS research and transforming clinical care.

We're taking a hard look at the game-changers on the horizon: what it will take to shorten the diagnostic journey from years down to mere hours, why it's time to retire outdated disease labels in favor of true precision medicine, and...

We are less than 40 days away from MSToronto2026—the joint ECTRIMS/ACTRIMS Scientific Congress. While the congress brings together the world's leading MS researchers and clinicians, Patient Community Day —in person and online—is designed specifically for people affected by multiple sclerosis. This week, Dr. Jennifer Graves and Brett Drummond join me to preview what to expect from Patient Community Day 2026.

With less than 50 days until the midterm elections in the United States, the National MS Society is hosting a webinar you can't afford to miss, titled MS Advocacy in Action: What the 2026 Elections Could Mean for Health...

Relapses make life with MS unpredictable. Understanding what they are, why they happen, and how best to manage them can make a relapse less scary and easier to navigate. This week, Dr. Gabriela Karolidis, a board-certified neurologist and neuroimmunologist at Thomas Jefferson University, joins us for a deep dive into MS relapses.

The MS International Federation has just updated the Atlas of MS, showing more than 3 million people living with MS worldwide. We're sharing the details behind the new numbers.

We'll also share a study showing how wearable activity trackers add a dimension of real-world...

Wise men and women remind us that life is a marathon, and not a sprint. Joining us this week is Benji Wilkins. Benji is a magician in the U.K., and for 42 days this summer, his life was quite literally a marathon. In the process, Benji raised money to help his mom, who lives with MS, and he raised awareness of MS across the U.K. and around the world.

We're also sharing results of a study that focused on gait training using a powered exoskeleton for people living with MS.

We'll tell...

Cognitive changes in MS—fluctuations in processing speed, memory, and executive function—can significantly impact daily life, yet they're often misunderstood or overlooked in routine clinical exams. This week, we are joined by Dr. Anna Kratz, clinical psychologist and Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Michigan, to discuss actionable, evidence-based ways to navigate cognitive challenges.

Dr. Kratz breaks down the latest findings from the CogDetect-MS study, exploring how daily symptom fluctuations, complex medication regimens, and common substances like caffeine and cannabis influence brain fog. She also shares practical comp...

Imagine your spouse or significant other has been diagnosed with MS...shortly after you were diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, and given just a 15% chance of survival. All of a sudden, the roles of patient and care partner are up for grabs -- and they change with almost daily frequency.

That's exactly the scenario my guest, Kathleen Silva, faced. Kathleen is joining me to discuss how she and her husband, Rick, survived and thrived amid that frightening chaos. (Spoiler alert -- no one died!)

We'll also tell you about an investigational drug...

If you Google the term "shared decision making", you'll find it defined as a collaborative process where patients and clinicians work together to select tests, treatments, and care plans based on clinical evidence and the patient's personal values and goals.

But shared decision-making isn't an automatic happy pill. It takes work, it takes discipline, and it takes a clear understanding of both the patient's and the clinician's roles. This week, Dr. Aliza Ben-Zacharia and Linda Lachman join me to share how shared decision-making has worked for them over the course of their longtime doctor-patient relationship, and how...

We get more listener emails about diet and MS than almost any other topic. If you're curious about how some of the well-known diets for MS actually stack up, or you're interested in understanding the connection between diet and MS-related fatigue, or you want to know what the biggest obstacle to staying on a new diet is (and this may surprise you), then this is the episode for you.

We're devoting this week's entire episode to my conversation with Dr. Tyler Titcomb, an assistant professor in the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition, and a registered dietitian with...

During his fellowship in the United States, Dr. Avinash Chandra trained to become an MS specialist at a world-class MS center. Then he returned home to Nepal and discovered that MS was largely considered non-existent. But Dr. Chandra knew it wasn't.

In this week's episode, Dr. Chandra discusses his experience creating a framework for MS care in Nepal that hadn't existed before. He also explains the necessary trade-offs in providing costly medical treatment in a country where the average family of four lives on an income of $500 a month.

It's been well-established that...

If you've spent any time at all living with or caring for someone with multiple sclerosis, you know that medical textbooks and information-filled websites can give us facts, figures, and symptoms, but they rarely capture the sometimes messy, sometimes overwhelming, and sometimes darkly funny reality of what it actually feels like to get a diagnosis of MS and realize your life has suddenly shifted under your feet.

Our guest, Liat Shalom, was diagnosed with MS in 2021, at the age of 30. Instead of letting that diagnosis define her, Liat picked up her pen and created Unravelled—a groundbreaking gr...

Living with depression has been described as "like living under a wet, heavy blanket". It can stop someone from showing up at work, meeting up with friends, and even connecting with their family.

One out of every two people living with MS will experience depression at some point in their MS journey. The METS for MS study is focused on a novel approach to treating major depressive disorder among people with MS -- one that doesn't require another infusion, injection, or pill.

This week, Dr. Robert Motl, principal investigator for the METS for MS study...

The Americans with Disabilities Act ensures that people living with disabilities receive reasonable accommodations at work. That law also applies to students attending most colleges and universities. And the ADA doesn't limit itself to physical disabilities. It's often applied to invisible disabilities, as well.

This week, Britt Neff, the Access Specialist at the University of Washington School of Law, joins me to explain all the ways the accommodation process can work for college students living with MS.

We'll also tell you about PTD802, an oral remyelination therapy that's just been given a green...

A short while ago, we shared very positive results from the Phase 3 clinical trials for fenebrutinib in both relapsing-remitting and primary progressive MS. Those results have been submitted to the FDA for approval.

This week, Dr. Jiwon Oh, the principal investigator in one of the Phase 3 trials for fenebrutinib, walks us through these positive results and explains what makes fenebrutinib a different kind of disease-modifying therapy and who might benefit most from it.

We're also talking about the European approval of Cenrifki (Tolebrutinib) to treat nonrelapsing secondary progressive MS, and we'll share our...

Next week, Matt Knaggs and Colin Goodman will attempt to set a Guinness World Record for running the 350-mile length of Ireland with MS. This week, you'll meet Matt and Colin and learn why this undertaking is so important to each of them.

We're also sharing survey results that point to gaps in how we approach MS care from the day of diagnosis.

We'll tell you what it really means when you read that the prevalence of MS is increasing. It isn't bad news at all!

We'll provide you with all...

For years, the standard medical advice for someone diagnosed with multiple sclerosis was simple, cautious, and as we now know, incredibly limiting: "Take it easy. Don't overexert yourself. And get plenty of rest."

Today, like almost every other aspect of MS care, neurological rehabilitation is being entirely rewritten. It's no longer about just managing decline; it's about leveraging emerging technologies to proactively build resilience, retrain the brain, and adopt cutting-edge exercise science to fundamentally change the trajectory of life with MS.

This week, three experts share their thoughts on what MS rehabilitation looks like in 2026...

This week, our coverage of the Consortium of MS Centers annual meeting continues with my guest, Dr. Stephen Krieger. In a wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Krieger offers a very encouraging clinical trial update, shares his thoughts on what treating someone living with advanced MS ought to look like, and points out potential obstacles to implementing the updated criteria for diagnosing MS.

Dr. Krieger is a Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and a Multiple Sclerosis Specialist at the Corinne Coldsmith Dickinson Center for MS.

We're...

Last week, the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers, best known as CMSC, hosted its annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, where we had a chance to talk with some of the world's top MS experts. We'll be sharing those conversations over the next few episodes of the podcast. Welcome to Part One of our coverage of CMSC 2026!

In what has become an annual tradition at this conference, Dr. Kathy Zackowski, the National MS Society's Associate Vice-President of Research, joins me to share her impressions of the sessions and presentations that stood out to her.

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May 30th is World MS Day! This year, the theme for World MS Day is "My MS Diagnosis," and I've been thinking about what happens right after that diagnosis. After an individual hears, "You have MS."

This week, Dr. Nancy Sicotte joins me to discuss the things you should know, the things you should be thinking about, and the things you should be doing in the first 100 days following an MS diagnosis.

Dr. Sicotte is the Chair of Neurology and Director of Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and she's...

When we talk about managing Multiple Sclerosis, our conversations naturally focus on things like disease-modifying therapies, mobility, MRI scans, and symptom management. But in this week's episode, we're shining a light on a critical aspect of MS wellness that doesn't get nearly enough attention: your oral health.

Living with MS can introduce a whole host of unexpected challenges to maintaining a healthy mouth. And beyond preventing tooth decay and gum disease, emerging research suggests that chronic oral inflammation, like periodontal disease, can trigger systemic inflammation throughout the body.

Dr. Ann Spolarich joins us...

One out of every two people with MS will experience clinical depression at some point in their MS journey, making depression one of the most significant yet under-discussed aspects of living with MS. While the physical symptoms of MS often take center stage, the neuropsychiatric challenges can be just as impactful on an individual's overall quality of life and long-term outcomes.

Joining us to shed some light on this important topic is Dr. Anthony Feinstein, a world-renowned neuropsychiatrist and professor at the University of Toronto. Dr. Feinstein has spent decades researching the biological and psychological...

For decades, an MS diagnosis came with outdated advice and significant uncertainty regarding starting a family. Today, the conversation has shifted from "Is it possible?" to "How do we optimize the journey?" This week, we're taking a deep dive into the essential considerations for family planning, managing MS during pregnancy, and the crucial postpartum period.

We're joined by Dr. Riley Bove, an Associate Professor of Neurology at UCSF and a leading expert in hormonal influences on MS. Dr. Bove brings her extensive research background and clinical expertise to help us understand how to navigate disease-modifying...

Myelin repair is a natural function. But, for people living with MS, that ability to repair myelin eventually stops working. New research led by my guest, Dr. Larry Sherman, may explain why that happens and point to new possibilities for future myelin repair treatments.

Dr. Sherman is a professor at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University, and his research focuses on how the brain and spinal cord respond to injury and disease, particularly in demyelinating conditions such as multiple sclerosis.

We're also sharing some potentially good news for...

The annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology is underway in Chicago this week, and one of the highlights is the presentation of the John Dystel Prize for Research in Multiple Sclerosis, awarded jointly by the National MS Society and the American Academy of Neurology.

This year's winner of the Dystel Prize is Dr. Ludwig Kappos, a physician-scientist at the University Hospital Basel in Basel, Switzerland, and the director of the Research Center for Clinical Neuroimmunology and Neuroscience Basel.

Dr. Kappos has played a major role in how clinical trials in MS...

An exercise program can be hard to start and even more difficult to stick with. But the evidence-based benefits speak for themselves. For people living with MS, it can mean improving quality of life without having to rely on a pill, injection, or infusion. And exercise is 100% affordable!

Dr. Robert Motl, the Director of the Exercise Neuroscience Research Laboratory at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, joins me to discuss how exercise can improve MS-related brain fog, reduce fatigue, and perhaps even support myelin repair.

We'll also...

When you join the iConquer MS community, you're no longer just a patient; you become a research partner. Not just a data point in someone's study. You become the person to suggest the study, to help define the study, and to participate in sharing the outcome of the study.

In this week's episode, I talk with the iConquer MS leadership team about what it means to be part of this people-powered research revolution and how iConquer MS keeps people affected by MS at the center of MS research.

The National Institutes of Health...

Last week, about 170 MS activists from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C. to participate in the National MS Society's Public Policy Conference. It's hard to come away from this event and not feel outraged by the stories that are shared, but also inspired by the resilience and bravery of the MS Activists who are willing to share some of the worst moments in their MS journey to make sure that our elected representatives in the House and Senate understand why the legislation we ask them to support is so vitally important.

In 1988, there were just 42 Walk MS events, raising approximately $4 million. In 2025, there were 170 events across the country that raised over $30 million. As the largest private funder of MS research in the world, the National MS Society relies on funds raised at events like Walk MS to continue supporting the work that brings us closer to cures.

This week, Brigitte Delaney, an amazing fundraiser and captain of the Many Sisters Walk MS team, shares her story, talks about the origin of the Many Sisters team, and offers her recipe for successful fundraising.

We're also sharing study...

175 MS activists are heading to Washington, D.C. next week for the National MS Society's Public Policy Conference. Their mission: to bring the concerns of the MS community directly to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

When it comes to the legislative support for healthcare and medical research, it's no secret that these are unusual times. Joining me to brief us on the National MS Society's ongoing advocacy efforts and give us a sneak peek at the specific legislative issues we'll be taking to Capitol Hill is the National MS Society's Vice President of Advocacy, Steffany Stern.

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It's MS Awareness Week, and this year we're diving into a theme that hits home for millions: Unseen MS. Multiple sclerosis is a master of disguise; it can be entirely invisible to the naked eye while remaining profoundly life-altering for the person living it.

In this episode, we're exploring the spectrum of the MS experience through two distinct, yet deeply connected stories.

First, you'll hear from RealTalk MS team member Kristine Werner Ozug. Kristine shares what it's like to navigate a world that doesn't always see her struggle, and how her "mostly invisible" MS symptoms...

You know them by their trade names such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. This class of medications is known as GLP-1 receptor agonists. And while they are best known for managing diabetes and promoting weight loss, researchers are finding that these drugs are also effective in a broad range of other health conditions. So, what about MS?

My guest this week is Dr. Ellen Mowry, the principal investigator of a clinical trial to determine whether a GLP-1 drug can reduce brain inflammation and provide neuroprotection in people living with progressive MS.

We're sharing details...

Welcome back to the third and final part of our coverage of the 2026 ACTRIMS Forum. This week's episode bridges the gap between groundbreaking clinical research and the nuanced reality of living with MS every day.

First, we'll dive into the "before" and "after" of a diagnosis, starting with Dr. Helen Tremlett's insights into the MS prodrome—those subtle, early signs that appear years before typical MS symptoms. We'll also talk with Dr. Tremlett about how other health conditions can predict long-term outcomes in sometimes surprising ways.

Dr. Ilana Katz Sand shares her latest re...

Welcome back to Part Two of our coverage of the 2026 ACTRIMS Forum. This week, we shift our focus to emerging therapies and clinical insights that are re-shaping the future of MS care. From the latest information on stem cell transplantation to evolving treatment strategies to the labels used to describe MS, we're breaking down the complex science into the conversations that matter most to the MS community.

Joining me to discuss one of the most significant presentations from the 2026 ACTRIMS Forum is Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, who opened the event with the Kenneth P. Johnson Memorial...