Actress doesn't let MS slow her down

The night she was named Miss Waikiki 2001, Liane Mark's feet were numb. She thought it was the 4-inch heels she'd worn in the pageant.

Within three weeks, the then 23-year-old had numbness and tingling running up her legs into her torso and hands. She brushed it off with excuses, from working out too hard to simple stress.

A neurologist considered a tumor on her spine. Instead, she was told she has multiple sclerosis. The image on her MRI showed so much MS damage that at first doctors suspected a fast-spreading brain cancer.

She couldn't believe it. For one thing, she was from Hawaii, where MS is somewhat more rare. Her ancestry (she's half Chinese) made it even more uncommon. The disease is more prevalent among those with European ancestry.

Mark, actress and the current Miss InterContinental, talked about life with MS during an information session Wednesday night at Little America Hotel. The event, sponsored by Biogen, which manufactures Avonex (an interferon beta-1a treatment for MS), also featured Dr. John Foley, a University of Utah neurologist, who talked about treatment options and what's on the horizon.

Mark didn't know anything about MS, she said, or she might have been more frightened. But the more she learned about the chronic, often-disabling central nervous system disease, which affects more than 400,000 Americans, the more nervous she became. Eventually, she made the conscious decision to face her fear and not let it slow her down.

She took a two-pronged approach that has kept her busier than ever. First, she volunteered as a "goodwill ambassador" for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, traveling around the country to educate others to the disease. And she jumped into a treatment regimen, though her symptoms at this point are few.

She takes Avonex and, because the weekly interferon injections are sometimes accompanied by depression, she takes Zoloft. It's important, she said, not to wait to treat symptoms of the disease but to take pro-active steps to minimize damage, which occurs silently up to a point. Statistics say about 40 percent of MS patients aren't on treatment because they "feel fine. But the disease is progressing even when you feel good," Mark said. "I encourage patients to get on treatment. It could make a huge difference 20 years down the line."

Her dad jokes that she's had only one episode with symptoms since diagnosis because he feeds her curry almost every day and it's rich with turmeric and cumin, two herbs with anti-inflammatory benefits. There may be some truth to it.