You look healthy.

I am a verbally medically retired RN because I was honest and told my supervisor the day I found out, that I have MS. It became a long ugly story that was printed in the Tampa Tribune newspaper about 2008.

I got diagnosed in 2006. But now that I have that 3rd stage of this monster, I get so tired of that phrase "You look healthy." It has made me explain this disease so much until at times I feel like I have been teaching a class all day. And men are the worse. I have tried to date the "I understand. I'm different" man until now I have lost all trust in any man just for those 3 words, "You look healthy".

And as said in many comments we all experience this mess differently. For me, I have the invisible pain, burning and prickling sensation all the time. And no special diet makes it any better, except tomatoes. They make the symptoms worse.

Being the independent person that I am, I do my best to care for myself and manage this disease the way my neurologist tell me. I read a lot and I am very familiar with my symptoms. Yet when I go out my apartment and maybe walk a few steps I get that same old frustrating look on people faces that attempt to defy my word or diagnosis by irritating me with the same crap, "You look healthy". Oh an the other one, "You don't look sick". I immediately say how does AIDS look? Then I get the ,"smart a.." look. So I began explaining this disease again only to end the conversation with, but "You look healthy".

Awareness is blind when people think a person with seemingly, MS, just don't look like they are sick. And too, how does "sick" suppose to look from person to person?