Running a business and living with multiple sclerosis (MS) can be challenging. #

It’s a neurological disease that can affect people in different ways, causing a range of physical and emotional symptoms that can have a significant impact on their quality of life. By raising awareness of what it’s like to live with MS, you can help to bring attention to this disease, and the challenges faced by those who live with it. Garry and his friends would love you to join our monthly webinar.

aiming to raise awareness of what it’s like to live with multiple sclerosis (MS)

Through your efforts to raise awareness, you are helping to educate others about the realities of living with MS. You are giving a voice to those who may feel unheard, and providing support and encouragement to those who may feel alone in their struggles. You are also helping to break down the stigma and misconceptions that can surround MS, and promoting greater understanding and empathy for those who live with this disease. By raising awareness of MS, you are also helping to promote research into its causes, treatments, and potential cures. You are giving hope to those who live with MS, and working to ensure that they have access to the best possible care and support. And ultimately, you are helping to create a more inclusive and compassionate society, where those who live with MS can be fully seen and valued for who they are. Subscribe to our email list to keep up to date with webinars MS doesn’t have to hold you back!

Running a Business and Living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Can Be Challenging

Running a business is demanding at the best of times. Add multiple sclerosis (MS) into the mix — with its unpredictable flare-ups, fatigue, and cognitive fog — and the day-to-day pressure of keeping a business moving can feel relentless. Yet many entrepreneurs living with MS build thriving businesses by working differently, not harder.

1. Build Your Business Around Your Energy, Not the Clock

MS fatigue doesn't follow a 9-to-5 schedule. Rather than forcing yourself into a fixed routine, track your energy over a few weeks and identify your genuinely productive windows — for many people living with MS, this is mid-morning, before heat or exertion builds fatigue. Schedule your highest-value work for those windows, and push admin or low-stakes tasks to your lower-energy periods.

2. Treat Rest as a Business Strategy, Not a Weakness

Pushing through fatigue often costs more time later through relapse, brain fog, or burnout. Planned rest — even short, scheduled breaks between meetings — protects your output over the long run. Building buffer time into your calendar isn't a concession; it's risk management for your most valuable business asset: you.

3. Delegate Early, Not as a Last Resort

Many business owners delay delegating until they're overwhelmed. For someone managing MS, waiting that long can trigger a flare. Identify the three tasks that drain you most and hand them off first — whether to a virtual assistant, a part-time employee, or outsourced services. Delegation isn't about capability; it's about preserving the energy only you can bring to the business.

4. Use Technology to Reduce Physical and Cognitive Load

Tools that once felt optional are now essential for many entrepreneurs managing chronic illness:

Voice-to-text tools for days when typing is difficult or dexterity is affected
Task management apps (Trello, Asana, Notion) to offload memory and reduce cognitive strain
Automated scheduling tools (Calendly) to avoid the back-and-forth of booking meetings
Cloud-based systems so you can work from bed, a clinic waiting room, or wherever your day takes you

5. Plan for Bad Days Before They Happen

A relapse or a bad flare-up day shouldn't derail your business if you've built resilience into your systems. Keep documented processes (SOPs) for recurring tasks so someone else can step in temporarily. Have a simple "bad day protocol": which meetings can move, who covers urgent client queries, and what genuinely has to happen that day.

6. Be Selective and Honest About Disclosure

You don't owe anyone a running commentary on your health, but deciding in advance how — and whether — you'll talk about MS with clients, staff, or business partners can save stress in the moment. Some entrepreneurs find that being open builds trust; others prefer to keep things private. Both are valid.

7. Set Boundaries Around Growth

Growth for growth's sake can be the enemy of sustainability. Before taking on a new client, service line, or team member, ask whether it adds proportionate energy cost to the reward. A smaller, well-managed business you can sustain for years often outperforms a larger one that burns you out in eighteen months.

8. Lean on Your Support Network — Medical and Personal

Work closely with your MS team (neurologist, MS nurse, occupational therapist) — an occupational therapist in particular can offer practical workplace adaptations. Equally, don't underestimate the value of connecting with other entrepreneurs managing chronic conditions.

9. Protect Your Mental Health Alongside Your Physical Health

The mental load of running a business while managing a chronic illness is significant — the worry, the guilt of "bad days," the pressure to perform as though nothing is different. Regular check-ins with a therapist or counsellor are not indulgences. They're part of keeping the business — and you — running.

10. Celebrate What Sustainable Success Looks Like

Redefine what "successful" means on your terms. A business that fits around your life, that you can run for the next twenty years without collapsing, is a genuine success story — arguably a more impressive one.

The Bottom Line

Living with MS while running a business means designing your work around your reality, not fighting against it. With the right systems, support, and self-compassion, it's entirely possible to build something that lasts — on terms that work for you.