MS can damage the nerves that affect your muscles. This can cause acute or paroxysmal pain in the form of spasms. Your arms and legs might shoot out uncontrollably and might have pain like cramping or pulling. Nerve pain can also be chronic in the form of painful or unusual sensations on your skin.
Tightness or stiffness of the muscles, called spasticity, is caused directly by MS. Spasticity, will alter walking and cause pulling on the joints. This can result in pain typically in the ankles, knees, hips and back.
Feeling weakness in one or both of your legs is called monoparesis or paraparesis and can be a direct result of MS. You can also feel weakness in your arms and other areas of your body, but to feel it in your legs often occurs more frequently.
So in a way, if you really think about it, while MS can attack and affect only one side of the body, it still affects both sides in the long run.
Abnormal sensations can be a common initial symptom of MS. This often takes the form of numbness or tingling in different parts of your body, such as the arms, legs or trunk, which typically spreads out over a few days.
Neurogenic pain is the most common and distressing of the pain syndromes in MS. This pain is described as constant, boring, burning or tingling intensely. It often occurs in the legs.
Numbness of the face, body, or extremities (arms and legs) is often the first symptom experienced by those eventually diagnosed as having MS.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a potentially disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system). In MS , the immune system attacks the protective sheath (myelin) that covers nerve fibers and causes communication problems between your brain and the rest of your body.
People should consider the diagnosis of MS if they have one or more of these symptoms: vision loss in one or both eyes. acute paralysis in the legs or along one side of the body. acute numbness and tingling in a limb.
In people with MS, the immune system attacks cells in the myelin, the protective sheath that surrounds nerves in the brain and spinal cord. Damage to the myelin sheath interrupts nerve signals from your brain to other parts of your body. The damage can lead to symptoms affecting your brain, spinal cord and eyes.
Alissa Willis, M.D. Legs like jelly or noodles, or legs that feel heavy like cement. These are some of the ways MyMSTeam members describe leg weakness, a common symptom of MS. Leg weakness can come on suddenly and may happen after exertion.
I have MS, that's multiple sclerosis to those of you whose lives haven't been touched by it. More specifically, and hey let's be specific, I have primary progressive multiple sclerosis. This means I have symptoms every day, and every night, without any intervals.
“MS pain that commonly interferes with sleep is neuropathic pain — often described as burning, shooting, searing, or deeply aching. This pain can be relentless and is often worse at night.” Musculoskeletal pain can occur from a compensatory gait pattern (due to leg weakness or foot drop).
Treatment: Your doctor may recommend pain relievers and drugs to ease muscle spasms. They may prescribe muscle relaxers, such as baclofen, tizanidine, or diazepam, or recommend spinal infusion pumps of muscle relaxers or pain medication. Even Botox shots can help by temporarily paralyzing a muscle or nerve.
MS spasticity, which makes for stiff or tight muscles, can cause muscles to spasm when the muscle is stretched, such as when you move your legs. Muscle spasms can be worse at night because spasticity is worse when there is less movement, such as when you are sleeping.
Here's where MS (typically) starts
Optic neuritis, or inflammation of the optic nerve, is usually the most common, Shoemaker says. You may experience eye pain, blurred vision and headache. It often occurs on one side and can eventually lead to partial or total vision loss.
One of these, the most common form, was relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS). Relapsing-remitting MS is defined as MS in which patients have relapses of MS and periods of stability in between relapses. Relapses are episodes of new or worsening symptoms not caused by fever or infection and that last more than 48 hours.
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.
Although MRI is a very useful diagnostic tool, a normal MRI of the brain does not rule out the possibility of MS. About 5 percent of people who are confirmed to have MS do not initially have brain lesions evidenced by MRI.
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 erythematosis, Sjogren's, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, some infections, and rare hereditary diseases.
Early symptoms can include vision problems, trouble walking, and tingling feelings. MS affects people differently. But common problems are trouble with movement and thinking, and bowel and bladder incontinence.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) triggers that worsen symptoms or cause a relapse can include stress, heart disease and smoking. While some are easier to avoid than others, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and overall health and wellness can have outsized benefits for MS patients.