b"Your neurologist really has the skills and needed to manage the depression, anxiety, ortraining to best help you manage your MS bipolar conditions, they can prescribe them.and keep the psychological symptoms to a Your doctors do not want you feeling badly orminimum. If there are things that require sensing that things are hopeless. They willtalk therapy or counseling, your neurologist press you to be on a DMT as it addresses theis connected to available resources and can underlyingcausethatismakingyoufeelmake a referral for you. If medications are awful! Please listen and follow their advice.Here is a list of things for you to do to get your depression and suicide risk under better control: Do not try to do this alone. Tell someone when you feel like things are hopeless. Get on a disease-modifying therapy and stay on it. If, after a few months of therapy for MS,things have not started to let up, have a conversation with your neurologist about changingmeds. Get on and stay on medications to manage your psychological symptoms, and be honest abouthow it is aecting your life.What is one small chanEe you made thathas improved your quality of life with MS?MaEriet Vermaak: I overhauled my lifestyle, and lost 88 pounds in the process. I accepted that MS isn'tgoing to disappear and worked with or around my weaknesses. I focus on positive instead of negativeaspects.In a nutshell: A change of mindset, incorporated exercise, and healthy eating.Rachel Laurn: I only buy a half gallon milk and orange juice, rather than the heavy one gallon jug. It iseasier to put in my scooter, easier to put in the car, easier to bring in the house, put in the fridge, andtake out of the fridge every time I want a drink.Moyaah S. Karraker: Working from home. I am able to spend more time with family, make my own workschedule, and have more control over stress level.Dulci Repke Hill: Since being diagnosed with MS 35 years ago, Ive been going to the gym. I love seeingsmiling faces of people I have come to know. Hearing their stories gets my mind off of mine while Irehabilitate or swim.Traci Warren: I have learned that getting enough sleep makes a dierence. Getting up around the sametime every day and going to bed around the same time each night, helps me function better throughoutthe day.Linda C. Kelley: My husband who has MS had Urolift and now he can pee. He still has issues, but hecan get a ow going.33 msfocusmagazine.org"