About a year and a half before talk show host Montel Williams was officially diagnosed with MS, I had my first episode. Three quarters of my body went numb with pins and needles. It began in my feet, just my feet, feeling like they were asleep. Then it was up to my shins, then knees, then thighs, waist, and finally my chest. It didn't stop there; it went partially down my arms from my little finger to my middle finger and all the way up the lower part of my forearms.

A few things about me, I am a drummer. When this first happened I was in a band that was playing a lot in New York City and in a few clubs in Boston. We already had shows booked and I refused to cancel them. I refused to stop playing. I couldn't really feel my sticks or my bass drum and hi-hat pedals, but I knew that if I didn't play it would consume me . . .

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the Central Nervous System (CNS) - that's the brain and spinal cord. Predominantly, it is a disease of the "white matter" tissue. The white matter is made up of nerve fibres which are responsible for transmitting communication signals both internally within the CNS and between the CNS and the nerves supplying rest of the body.

In people affected by MS, patches of damage called plaques or lesions appear in seemingly random areas of the CNS white matter. At the site of a lesion, a nerve insulating material, called myelin, is lost. I shall explain this process in more detail later. Clinically, MS is a hard condition to characterise because it is very unpredictable and variable. Depending on which areas of the CNS are affected and how badly they are damaged, the type and severity of symptoms can vary greatly.