Jack Osbourne Says This Is The Biggest Misconception About MS

As a teen, Jack Osbourne became a household name thanks to his family’s reality TV show, The Osbournes. The son of heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne and TV personality Sharon Osbourne, the young star has gone on to carve out his own career in entertainment, most recently hosting the reality series Portals to Hell, and appearing on Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour. However, in 2012, just weeks after welcoming his first child, the star’s personal life was shaken up by a shocking diagnosis.

After experiencing pain and numbness in his leg and developing vision loss in one eye, he learned that he had multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system. Since then, Osbourne has added “health advocate” to his list of achievements, having launched a web series called You Don’t Know Jack About MS with the aim of dispelling myths about the illness. Read on to learn what the star says is the biggest misconception about MS, and to hear his advice for those newly diagnosed with the illness.

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Osbourne says that MS is different for each person who is diagnosed with it.

Another common misconception the star shared is that those with MS are “no longer able-bodied—that you can’t function the same as everyone else.” He says he often encounters the myth that those with MS “need assistance to either walk or just function in your day to day life,” and adds, “that’s just not the case anymore.”

Osbourne notes that some individuals with more severe types of MS are affected more rapidly than others. However, he emphasizes that relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) is the most common form of MS , “and is also the most manageable.”

In fact, those with RRMS typically have many “good days” between flare ups, having few or no symptoms at all. “Relapsing-remitting MS is defined by inflammatory attacks on myelin (the layers of insulating membranes surrounding nerve fibers in the central nervous system (CNS), as well as the nerve fibers themselves,” explains the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. “During these inflammatory attacks, activated immune cells cause small, localized areas of damage which produce the symptoms of MS.” To Osbourne’s previous point, the organization adds, “Because the location of the damage is so variable, no two people have exactly the same symptoms.”

Talking to people with MS can help dispel these myths.

Finally, Osbourne says that one thing that everyone with MS should do is explore treatment options sooner rather than later. While there is no cure for MS, he says many people don’t realize that medication, physical therapy, and lifestyle interventions can significantly boost your quality of life, slow the progression of the disease, and help you recover from attacks more quickly.

“Get on a treatment as quickly as possible, if that’s the decision you make,” Osborne says. “Ten years ago there was no treatment on the market and now there’s close to a dozen, and so there are a lot of options available.”

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