The National MS Society has designated this week as Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week.

For Louise Beckles, every day for the past 36 years has been dictated by a diagnosis.

"You don't always know what's going to happen from day to day,” says Beckles.

Since 1983, she's been living with multiple sclerosis, or MS, which is a disease in which damaged nerves block messages from the brain to the body. What that means for each individual patient varies.

"It's just different for everyone,” says Beckles.

Dr. Vincent Macaluso doesn't just live with MS, he works with it. 

He says being a neurologist gives him a unique understanding of a disease that can easily be misunderstood. 

"When somebody says ‘oh, but you look so good,’ the first thing I think is but you should see what a zoo it is inside my head,” says Macaluso.

Both Beckles and Dr. Macaluso say one thing they want people to be aware of is that the symptoms of MS aren't always visibly apparent and often can be hard to see.

"There's people that you're interacting with every day who have it and you don't realize it,” says Macaluso.

It has been found that more people have it than previously thought. According to a study conducted by the National MS Society and published in the Journal Neurology last month, there are twice as many people living with the disease as initially estimated.

"It's something that affects our minds quite often and the only way to see another person's mind is to listen,” says Macaluso.