Most people with MS have relapses of symptoms followed by periods of recovery (remission). MS can cause many different symptoms, including trouble with muscle control and vision, tiredness, pain and changes in thinking. An MRI scan of your brain can show areas of damage, but there is no single test to diagnose MS.
There is a long list of possible MS symptoms, and they vary from person to person. The most common symptoms of MS include fatigue, urinary and bowel issues and sexual dysfunction. Some patients may have problems with pain, walking, balance, blurred vision, slurred speech and swallowing.
Fatigue. Occurs in about 80% of people, can significantly interfere with the ability to function at home and work, and may be the most prominent symptom in a person who otherwise has minimal activity limitations.
Early MS symptoms may include blurred vision, numbness, dizziness, muscle weakness, and coordination issues. MS is progressive and can worsen over time. Eventually, the disease can do damage directly to the nerves, causing permanent disability.
MS can appear at any age but most commonly manifests between the ages of 20 and 40. It affects women two to three times as often as men. Almost one million people in the United States have MS, making it one of the most common causes of neurological disability among young adults in North America.
While there are no definitive blood tests for diagnosing MS, they can rule out other conditions that may mimic MS symptoms, including Lyme disease, collagen-vascular diseases, rare hereditary disorders, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Can I have multiple sclerosis for years and not know it? Yes. MS can go undetected for years. Research has suggested that many patients experience MS-related symptoms and signs several years before receiving a definite diagnosis of the disease.
The researchers found that over the past 25 years, life expectancy for people with MS has increased. However, they also found that the median age of survival of people with MS was 76 years, versus 83 years for the matched population.
Lumbar puncture or spinal tap
It goes into the space around your spinal cord and collects a small sample of the fluid there. This is then tested for signs of MS. People with MS nearly always have antibodies in this fluid.
Most symptoms develop abruptly, within hours or days. These attacks or relapses of MS typically reach their peak within a few days at most and then resolve slowly over the next several days or weeks so that a typical relapse will be symptomatic for about eight weeks from onset to recovery.
The early signs and symptoms of MS can be the same for women and men. One of the more obvious first signs of MS is a problem with vision, known as optic neuritis. This is often because it's a more concrete symptom as opposed to vaguer neurological symptoms like numbness and tingling.
Mood changes
These feelings will likely ebb and flow over the course of the disease. Worry, fear, moodiness, irritability and anxiety: normal reactions in the face of unpredictability; anyone can become irritable and anxious when faced with difficult challenges. Depression: one of the most common symptoms of MS.
Therefore a careful combination of clinical examinations, MRI scans and lumbar punctures are required. To differentiate MS from other similar neurological conditions, most neurologists use what is called the McDonald criteria.
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.
Multiple sclerosis (MS).
When your optometrist detects optic nerve inflammation, that can indicate a diagnosis of MS. Patients with MS often also have double vision, blurred vision, or report pain when moving their eyes.
But studies which have investigated whether stress causes MS have been mixed. Although the person with MS knows from their experience that their MS symptoms started after or alongside a stressful period of time, there is no direct evidence that stress causes MS — although it might trigger it.
But ongoing research shows many reasons could be at play, including your genes, where you live, and even the air you breathe. Though some things, like emotional trauma and infection, can worsen MS symptoms, there is no evidence to suggest that anything you do could cause the disease or stop its natural progress.
You may have to adapt your daily life if you're diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), but with the right care and support many people can lead long, active and healthy lives.
It can cause symptoms like problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance. It's a lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disability. In many cases, it's possible to treat symptoms. Average life expectancy is slightly reduced for people with MS.
MS itself is rarely fatal, but complications may arise from severe MS, such as chest or bladder infections, or swallowing difficulties. The average life expectancy for people with MS is around 5 to 10 years lower than average, and this gap appears to be getting smaller all the time.
MS is not an inherited disease — it is not passed down from generation to generation. But people can inherit genetic risk. This means that MS is not genetic in the simpler way that black hair or dimples are.