'It is a hidden disease': Tamworth MS peer support group here to help

He views himself as one of the lucky ones, because he was able to get on top of his condition "fairly quickly".

"You hear stories of people who struggle for years to get diagnosed," he said.

"I would put myself in the category of fortuitous outcome. But it was good because people were thinking about it and I give credit to the health care professionals."

MS is a condition where the immune system attacks the brain and the spinal cord, which can damage the nerve fibres.

This can cause communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body.

When it comes to MS everyone experiences different symptoms.

For Mr George, his first symptom was when his feet went "numb and tingled" while on a cross trainer.

"I blamed my shoes, saying, 'My shoes are too tight', 'My laces aren't right', or 'I stopped the blood flow'," he said.

"After 20 minutes, they would go all tingly and I would have to stop."

Mr George has never let his diagnoses limit what he can do. He still remains highly active, especially when it comes to coaching the Tamworth Swans AFNC team.

"Everyone should exercise and everyone should be active," he said.

"You get a bit of MS for a bit, but it is about seeing through it, as you don't want it to define you.

"It took me a good five years for me to say, 'I don't care. I am who I am'."

Mr George's family and friends have always been a shoulder to lean on.

When he attended the Compass Allied Health MS information day on Thursday, May 30, he has been able to gain extra insight through the MS peer support group.

According to MS Australia, there are more than 33,300 Australians currently living with MS.

The average diagnosed age is between 20 and 40, and three out of four of those diagnosed are women.

Robyn Leece and Marianne Gaul worked together as nurses for a number of years before their own diagnoses.

Ms Leece was diagnosed in 2002 and potentially she had also been living with the condition for ten years.

"I had a whole lot of little things that I couldn't put my finger on," she said.

"My GP kept telling me it was stress, stress, stress, then I had my first episode, which was like a stroke."

She experienced facial weakness and her words became slurred. It took a number of weeks to get a definitive diagnosis.

Ms Gaul said it would be 17 years after her first episode, to when she received a formal diagnosis.

"I was 40 when I had my first episode, but back in those days, you had to have two episodes to be diagnosed."

She experienced numbness and had burns to her back, "as I did not realise how hot the water was".

Both women say they feel like MS is not a medical condition that is regularly spoken about. But they hope to change that with the Tamworth MS Peer Support Group.

"There are so many other components to MS that no two people have the same symptoms," Ms Gaul said.

"A lot of what we have is invisible."

Ms Gaul said they had a young woman join the group, and they were so happy to provide her with "love, support, and advice on how to get onto NDIS."

"She had none of that information," she said.

Some members travel in from the farthest parts of the region for the monthly meeting.

In the last decade, MS incidence and prevalence rates have increased, but better access to neurology services has allowed more cases to be detected early.

"It is a scary and quite frightening diagnosis," Ms Leece said.

"You don't know where you are going or how disabled you will become.

"It is one of those things that, if you have someone else, you can talk to, explain, and share, as we are all on the same journey and there is an abundance of help."