From Oprah.com:Every hour, someone in the world is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a life-threatening neurological disease. Ten years ago, Emmy-winning talk show host Montel Williams was one of these people.
At first, this former Naval intelligence officer chose to hide his pain, but when a tabloid newspaper threatened to print his story, he decided to go public with his health crisis.
Montel spoke about his diagnosis on his talk show, but few people knew how much he was suffering.
On set, Montel conducted interviews with poise. Then, during commercial breaks, he says he'd go backstage, sit down and cry because of the pain. "[I would] let it go, refocus, come back out and sit down, and do another interview with a person," he says. "I was doing that every day."
Montel says that the 1.5 million people in America living with MS suffer a little differently.
"My primary symptom is pain," he says. "I've got pain from my shins to my feet, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and it's been there for the last 10 years."
Recently, the pain spread to Montel's face. "It literally feels like you're taking a fork and stabbing me right now. People say, 'How the devil do you deal with this?'" he says. "You have to get a grip."
Montel says he's learned psychiatric and psychological techniques to shift focus away from the intense, burning sensation.
"I bundle up the pain and keep it in a box,' he says. "Put it away, dampen it down over here so I can deal with other things."
On top of the pain, Montel also deals with other crippling symptoms of MS.Montel says 70 percent of people with MS have the inability to process high temperatures. For him, it's 85 degrees and above.
"It's like if your computer gets hot and it starts shorting down," he says. "My brain starts shorting down, and I literally start losing the ability to move."
In his book Living Well Emotionally, Montel writes about a trip to Nevada that almost had a tragic ending. After being exposed to extreme heat, Montel says he experienced what some call a "chest hug"—a freezing of the diaphragm.
"I thought I was having a heart attack," he says. "For the next five minutes, I don't know whether or not I need to call 911 or if this was that chest hug thing. That was the worst I'd ever felt it."
Thankfully, Montel's wife, Tara, was there to support him.
"One of the things that's so magical about this journey that I've been on is the fact that I have somebody who's taken this journey one million percent with me…and that's Tara," he says. "She knows when I'm hurting this way. She has the ability to get her arm under mine and make me look like I'm holding her. Drag me to another place."
