Hot flashes are a common menopause symptom. A hot flash is a sudden feeling of being very warm, particularly in the face, neck, and chest. People with MS are often sensitive to heat and may experience a temporary worsening of symptoms whenever they feel too warm.
MS can cause temperature dysregulation
Overheating at night can also be hormonal or linked to endocrine issues, so if you are having night sweats or hot flashes you should make sure they can't be explained by anything else.
Heat intolerance, or heightened sensitivity to heat, is one of the most common symptoms of MS. This condition affects between 60 percent and 80 percent of people with MS.
Numbness or Tingling
Numbness of the face, body, or extremities (arms and legs) is often the first symptom experienced by those eventually diagnosed as having MS.
Here's where MS (typically) starts
Although a number of MS symptoms can appear early on, two stand out as occurring more often than others: Optic neuritis, or inflammation of the optic nerve, is usually the most common, Shoemaker says. You may experience eye pain, blurred vision and headache.
These include fibromyalgia and vitamin B12 deficiency, muscular dystrophy (MD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), migraine, hypo-thyroidism, hypertension, Beçhets, Arnold-Chiari deformity, and mitochondrial disorders, although your neurologist can usually rule them out quite easily.
And I am getting warmer. Heat is kryptonite to anyone with multiple sclerosis (MS). Sensitivity to and intolerance of heat exacerbates our symptoms. MS causes nerves to lose their myelin sheath, making them more vulnerable to heat and temperature changes.
MS damages the protective sheath around nerve cells in your brain and spinal cord. This slows down nerve signals, so your body doesn't always respond the way it should. Heat can slow these signals even more. MS can also affect the part of your brain that controls your body's temperature.
Previous observations suggested that people with MS are less able to regulate their temperature due to an impaired sweating capacity (in other words, delayed sweating or a reduced amount of sweating).
Heat generally produces only temporary worsening of symptoms. It does not cause more disease activity (demyelination or damage to the nerves themselves). The symptoms improve after you cool down.
How long can MS go undiagnosed? MS is usually diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, but it can go undetected for years. In fact, a 2021 study suggested that many people with MS experience disease symptoms several years before being officially diagnosed with the disease.
Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a rare chronic disease that happens when your immune system attacks specific parts of your central nervous system. Experts previously thought this was a rare type of multiple sclerosis (MS) but now recognize it's a separate condition.
Sarcoidosis is another inflammatory autoimmune disease that shares some symptoms with MS, including fatigue and decreased vision. But sarcoidosis most commonly affects the lungs, lymph nodes, and skin, causing a cough or wheezing, swollen lymph nodes, and lumps, sores, or areas of discoloration on the skin.
The Diagnostic Process for Multiple Sclerosis
Along with your medical history, a physical and neurological exam is used to confirm MS symptoms while testing the nerves that control your vision, strength, and hearing. The medical history and exam can often provide enough evidence to meet the diagnostic criteria.
While there is no definitive blood test for MS, blood tests can rule out other conditions that cause symptoms similar to those of MS, including lupus erythematosus, Sjogren's syndrome, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, some infections and rare hereditary diseases.
MS is a Silent Disease
For example, chronic pain, blurred vision, and sensory problems are only experienced by the individual with MS, and cannot be easily noticed by others.