ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Multiple sclerosis advocate and patient Edward Hale is making the rounds to various county boards of commissioners seeking for March to be declared Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month.

In addition to attending the Belmont County Board of Commissioners meeting Wednesday, he will also be visiting the Carroll, Stark, Jefferson and Holmes county boards of commissioners, advocating for them to recognize the month of March as Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month in Ohio.

He added that he plans to visit all 88 counties in the state of Ohio at some point to bring further awareness to multiple sclerosis.

Hale, who resides in Carroll County, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006.

According to the Mayo Clinic, multiple sclerosis – often referred to as MS – is a disease that causes breakdown of the protective covering of nerves. Multiple sclerosis can cause numbness, weakness, trouble walking, vision changes and other symptoms.

Hale said before his diagnosis in 2006, he had never heard of MS. He recalled making an appointment due to having vision problems and headaches every night.

“I found out it’s a neurological disease and there is no cure for it. To this day, there’s plenty of medications to help subside the side effects of it. As I said, there’s no known cure. Medications will help alter side effects, which include headaches, constant burning of the feet, itching, numbness, blurred vision and mood swings,” he said. “There’s three various forms of multiple sclerosis. Everybody that I’ve encountered in my life has told me different testimonies that they have had. There’s some people with vision problems. Some people, including myself, that can take the medication and can continue on in your everyday life as normal And there’s others who tell me that they’re constantly having problems. And like I said, numbing of the hands, burning of the feet, tiredness, mood swings.

“And then the last group, that aggressive group, where I have had a gentleman tell me that he was walking down the sidewalk one day and felt like somebody hit him in the back with a sledgehammer, and he’s confined to a wheelchair.”

He added that when he was first diagnosed with MS and started learning more information about the condition, he discovered that former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft made a proclamation for March to be Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month in the state of Ohio.

On March 2, 2006, Taft signed House Bill 379 at the Ohio Statehouse, designating March Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month.

Belmont County Board of Commissioners President J.P. Dutton thanked Hale for speaking at the meeting to raise awareness of the disease. He then made a motion to adopt a resolution declaring March to be Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month in Belmont County. It passed unanimously.

Commissioner Jerry Echemann then asked Hale if it has ever been determined what causes MS. Hale replied that he was informed by his neurologist that there is no known cause or cure.

“But during my research, I found this very interesting. If you look at the state of Ohio and you follow the river towns, the coal mine river towns. It makes you wonder, it’s not proven, but it makes one wonder if the old days of the coal mining and the burning of coal has something to do with that. May be true, may not be, I don’t know, but a lot of research that you could find will point to the Ohio River towns along the river, including this one,” Hale said. “But there’s no known cause and no known cure unfortunately. But hopefully, someday there will be a cause and a cure found.”

Echemann asked Hale if MS affects life expectancy. Hale responded that it doesn’t and noted that the most common time for MS to be diagnosed in a person is between the ages of 30 and 50.

“It hit me in 2006 and yet the doctors couldn’t tell me how long I had it for, so it could’ve been in my body for 10 years,” Hale said.