Welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break #28, where we are pleased to welcome Claes Nermark as our guest!   Our Coffee Break series is your chance to get to know members of our diverse OMS community. In each episode, you’ll join Geoff Allix for an intimate chat with a different member of our global community. Our guests will share their personal stories and talk about their challenges and victories, large and small. We hope you find common cause and a source of inspiration from the stories of these very special people.   As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. We hope you enjoy this episode’s conversation with Claes, coming to you straight from Sweden.   Claes’s Bio:   Claes lives in Sweden. He is happily married to Malin, and they have three grown children. At university, Claes trained to become a physical education and biology teacher. In addition to teaching, he has added the following skills to his CV: software trainer, fitness and yoga instructor, event manager, sports club administrator, operations manager, vice principal, and employee wellness manager.   In 2002, during a stressful period as an event manager, Claes was diagnosed with optic neuritis. A scar in the brain where the optic nerve branches to each eye was found, and he was diagnosed with a stroke as the disruption of sight was very similar in both eyes. But was it really a stroke?   In 2010, it was time for a career change from sports club administrator to operating manager at a start-up in holistic health. During the stressful preparations for his new role, he noticed obvious double-vision when driving home one day. The MRI scan showed multiple lesions in the brain, and Claes was diagnosed with MS.   Malin, Claes’s wife, learned about OMS on the internet and this was the first step on an amazing journey to health and recovery. Apart from reading the book and adopting the program, Claes is forever grateful that he got the opportunity to attend the first OMS retreat in the northern hemisphere at Launde Abbey in 2013. The amazing people Claes and Malin met at Launde Abbey have all become their OMS family.   Without any DMDs, Claes has now been relapse free for eight years (and counting). Today he runs his own business, Do Your Thing, as a health creator doing public speaking, teaching, coaching, fitness classes, and personal training.    In 2021, Claes became the first OMS Circle Ambassador in Sweden.   Questions:   Claes, welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break. We’re so pleased to have you on our program. The purpose of this series is to better get to know some of the diverse members of our community from around the world, and today you’re in the hot seat. Can you tell us a little about your day-to-day life? When were you diagnosed with MS? Can you provide some context on that? When were you diagnosed and how did you initially deal with it? At which point did you come across the OMS program? How was that experience for you? Why did you decide to start following it? I understand that stress was a big factor leading up to your diagnosis. How do you manage it now? What are some of the challenges you faced at first in adopting the OMS program, and how did you overcome them? When did you first start to see any kind of positive indicators in following OMS guidelines? What were these? You’re currently very involved in the OMS community, particularly as the ambassador of the OMS Circle in Sweden. Can you talk to us about the OMS Circles experience, and what that’s meant to you? I also understand you’re a contributor to the newly published Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook. I believe you contributed the chapter on exercise. What do you have to say on the subject? One of your personal interpretations of MS is Mental Strength. It takes a lot of that as well as physical ability to do triathlons, long distance running and biking, all of which you’ve done since your diagnosis. Now we know not everyone ca