Chris Muotoh, who now lives in Belle Vale, also felt numbness throughout his body
Chris Muotoh(Image: Supplied)
A man’s life changed after a conversation with one of his clients. Around 10 years ago, Chris Muotoh, 44, from Wavertree, was working as a personal trainer.
Chris, a self-described workaholic, kept going as normal even when he started experiencing numbness and seeing splotches, often called eye floaters, drifting through his fields of view. Chris, who now lives in Belle Vale, initially thought he had sciatica. This when your sciatic nerve, which runs from your lower back to your feet, is irritated or compressed.
Speaking to the ECHO, Chris said: “Being a personal trainer, you’re working nearly every day to try and get clients. I was training a client and I thought I had sciatica because half my body went numb.
“I thought it was from overtraining but my client was a nurse and she asked about my symptoms. I’d gone numb and I had splotches in my eye. After we talked, she said, have you heard about MS? I said no. She said, I think you need to get it checked out.
“I spoke to my doctor and I took it from there. It started getting worse when I got blind spots in my eye. The hue/tone of what I could see changed. That’s when I thought, something’s really wrong here.
“The doctor at the time suspected that it could have just been stress from overwork. After a few brain scans, it came back that there was suspicious activity in the brain pattern, and then he goes, I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve got MS.”
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that affects the brain and spinal cord. It can’t currently be cured, but treatment can often help manage it.
According to the NHS, symptoms can include a numbness or a tingling feeling in different parts of the body and problems with your eyes or vision.
Chris said he felt relieved once he was diagnosed as the “waiting game” was now over. However, he soon felt isolated as his condition meant he couldn’t train like he used to.
Chris Muotoh is now a full-time wheelchair user and trains in jujitsu(Image: Supplied)
Chris said: “It was difficult. I had clients at that time. I was just trying to keep busy to take my mind off it, but also to pay the bills. I had to slow down.
“When you’re a bit of a workaholic, you don’t know how to slow down. I think I was in denial. But I was getting limb weakness and something called Uhthoff’s phenomenon, where if I over train and get too warm, it will affect my sight, I’ll get blurred vision. Over time, I’ve slowly learned a little bit more about the condition.”
Later, Chris was diagnosed with secondary MS and now uses a wheelchair, which meant he had to give up his previous exercise routines entirely.
He said: “I was used to being active. It wasn’t fun to understand and get used to. I’d never heard of MS. I was asking my family if they knew anyone who’d had it but I was the only one, which I think made it more isolating.”
Chris says he’s now rebuilt his confidence and trains in jujitsu in his wheelchair from Senshi Academy. He said: “The first day I used a wheelchair, I was worried about how people were going to see me.
“But in general people have been patient and helpful. There isn’t a lot of understanding about MS, because everyone’s experience of it is so unique and it affects everyone so differently. A common mistake people make is thinking it only affects older people.
“After being diagnosed, I heard scare stories. It was like, oh my God, my life is literally over. Once you’re in a wheelchair, you do sometimes fear the worst. But the question is, where do we go from here? There was a lot of soul searching.
“Sometimes when you end up with disability, people just give you two pages of exercises and say take care, have a nice day, continue your life.
“I rang up a few gyms. A lot of the instructors were not trained in training people in a wheelchair. Eventually I contacted Senshi. I’ve been doing it now for three and a half years. I just take it day by day. But I’m more positive about the success and the training.”
This MS Awareness Week, new research from eight leading MS charities finds almost two thirds (65%) of people with MS said they felt judged or treated differently because of their condition.
The findings are from a collaboration of MS charities – MS Society, MS Together, MS Trust, MS-UK, Overcoming MS, the Neuro Therapy Network, Shift.ms and Talks with MS. To mark this year’s MS Awareness Week campaign, MS Think Again, more than 1,600 people living with MS in the UK were surveyed to understand the full impact of public misconceptions, and to challenge assumptions about MS.
Chris said: “When I was first diagnosed, I felt very isolated. Losing the ability to train was incredibly difficult, and I think it brought on a kind of grief or identity crisis. But getting into jujitsu has given me self-confidence again.”
You can keep up-to-date with Chris’s fitness journey via @muotoh8238 on Instagram.