Exercise class challenges people with MS to stay fit

After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Paul Wallace couldn't even sit on an exercise ball with his feet on the floor without falling over.

Now he can curl over the top of the ball and balance on it without touching the ground. For someone with MS, which can throw off the sense of balance, that's quite an accomplishment.

Progress only came through weekly workouts at fitMS, an exercise program designed specially for people with movement disorders like MS, Parkinson's disease, lupus and arthritis.

When the class moved from Palatine to Schaumburg, farther from Wallace's home in Indian Creek, he told instructor Joy Wagner, "I don't care where you go, I would follow you."

The other dozen people in Wagner's class feel the same way, coming from across the suburbs because she is the only instructor they know who tailors her workout to each of their specific abilities.

People with MS were once told to avoid physical activity, which was thought to worsen the condition. But experience and studies have shown that exercise and yoga can significantly reduce fatigue and improve movement in people with MS.

As a nurse with MS herself, Wagner has created her own Web site, fitMS.org, and exercise class. She's dedicated to the idea that people with MS - which in extreme cases can cause paralysis or blindness - can successfully rage against the dying of the light and lead active, normal lives.

Inspired by an Olympian

Wagner, a single mom from Palatine, was a nurse to children in intensive care before she began suffering symptoms in 1994, but wasn't diagnosed until 2001. She had partial loss of vision and equilibrium and numbness on her right side. She got to the point where she couldn't even lift her head.

"I was like a baby," she said. "I had to relearn everything."

To help her recovery, she started using all the fitness equipment that had been collecting dust in her basement, including the exercise ball she had used to help mothers in labor.

She followed in the trailblazing path of former Olympic medalist skier Jimmie Heuga, who was diagnosed with MS in 1967 and was told to stop physical activity. Heuga discovered instead that exercise energized him and founded the Heuga Center for MS in Colorado, which emphasizes exercise and lifestyle changes to keep people with MS active.

People with multiple sclerosis get fatigued and overheated easily, so Wagner runs her class at a manageable pace, keeping the activity level challenging but not exhausting.

She concentrates on problem areas for many people with MS: balance, flexibility and strength.

Participants do a lot of work with exercise balls, which gets them to work on balance. Wagner uses yoga and tai chi to improve their range of motion.

One student, Mary Stevens, was once wheelchair-bound and literally shuffled into class five years ago, unable to do a push-up or squat.

Within a year other students were calling her Marathon Mary. She could do squats for as long as she wanted and could do push-ups while balancing on the ball.

Even brief inactivity makes people regress quickly. When Stevens missed class for several months due to other health problems, she said she was a shell of her former self when she came back - but is quickly improving again.

Good medicine

People get MS when, for unknown reasons, the immune system attacks the central nervous system, causing scar tissue (sclerosis) on the fatty tissue surrounding the nerves. Its effects vary widely from person to person, from mild, such as numbness in the limbs, to severe, such as paralysis or blindness.

The disease is not contagious but lasts for a lifetime. Most people with MS go through remissions and relapses, getting better or worse at times, but usually with lingering symptoms after a relapse. Recently developed medications have helped greatly to slow down progression of the disease.

Recreation administrators often recommend senior-citizen exercise classes for people with MS, but MS often strikes people in their 20s and 30s, who might want to be more active than their older classmates.

Wagner once had classes in several suburban locations, but facilities can make much more money with a general fitness class, and now she is down to one site at the Campanelli YMCA in Schaumburg.

She hopes to offer classes elsewhere if she can get sponsors.

Her Web site, fitMS.org, offers nutritional and wellness tips and has sold more than 4,000 DVDs of her exercise class. She also shows MS patients how to give themselves injections of medications.

In 2005, the MS Society gave her a Leader of Hope Award.

Dr. George Katsamakis, a neurologist who specializes in treating MS in the Northwest suburbs, says the new medications have helped many people, but he also highly recommends exercise like Wagner's class.

"There are a lot of quack diets and medications out there," he said, "but exercise is probably as important as any medication. It just has to be modified to fit each person."

<p class="factboxheadblack">Where to find exercise for MS, other disabilities</p> <p class="News">The National Center on Physical Activity and Disability at the University of Illinois at Chicago advocates exercise for everyone, regardless of disability. It offers exercise guidelines for people with multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, autism, cancer, diabetes and a wide variety of other conditions at <a href="http://www.ncpad.org" target="new">ncpad.org</a>.</p> <p class="News">Aquatic exercise classes are good for MS because they keep participants from overheating. Health Bridge Fitness Center in Crystal Lake and Delnor Community Health and Wellness Center in Geneva offer water classes for MS, with stretching, strengthening and range of motion exercises in the pool.</p> <p class="News">Some Curves studios also offer MS classes, and many exercise and rehab facilities, such as Edward Health & Fitness Center in Naperville and Marianjoy Rehabilitation in Oakbrook Terrace, work to tailor exercise to individuals with disabilities.</p> <p class="News">A doctor's approval is typically required to attend such classes. </p> <p class="News">One other way to get active next weekend is through the Walk MS 2009, which will be held Sunday, May 3, on the Chicago lakefront and at Sunset Park in Lake in the Hills, Harper College in Palatine, Pottawatomie Park in St. Charles and the Naperville Riverwalk. Check <a href="http://www.msillinois.org" target="new">msillinois.org</a> for information or call (312) 421-4500.</p>