Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Support Group
This community is a place where members can discuss current events and weigh in on what's going on in the world.
that I've had MS since my late teens? While clearing away the clutter in our 'library,' I found journals and writings from years ago. Powerful. Scary to realize that I felt so horrible and desperate so many years ago. Really scary to realize that the fears I had over twenty years ago are some of the same fears I still have. Some similar symptoms.
Here's my theory--I've possibly had MS since maybe 18 or 19 years old. The severe depressive episodes I've experienced in the past (many years ago) were MS exacerbations--only diagnosed as chronic depression/anxiety. Since some of my lesions are 'old,' my theory makes sense. The spinal lesion, which actually led to MS diagnosis (lesion was active during medical workup/testing) is relatively new, resulting in the more common (tingling, numbness) MS symptoms.
Here's what has NOT changed for me since I was in my 20's: severe fatigue, headaches (go in spurts), nausea (off and on), tightness in chest, depression, anxiety, and MEMORY issues. What I really found odd was that in my 20's I CRAVED sugar, just like I do now. Here I thought this was a kind of new symptom; turns out it is very old! I also had itchy skin then and I still do today--probably even worse today though.
Do any of you experience depression/anxiety as one of your major symptoms? If so, I'd like to connect with you to see if we've had similar experiences and if an exacerbation can indeed present itself through major depression.
My depression now is fairly well controlled thanks to wonderful drugs they make now for this.
Since reading these old journals/letters to myself, I've become very curious about the relationship between MS and depression. I know there is a connection, but how much of one? Are mine connected?
Here's my theory--I've possibly had MS since maybe 18 or 19 years old. The severe depressive episodes I've experienced in the past (many years ago) were MS exacerbations--only diagnosed as chronic depression/anxiety. Since some of my lesions are 'old,' my theory makes sense. The spinal lesion, which actually led to MS diagnosis (lesion was active during medical workup/testing) is relatively new, resulting in the more common (tingling, numbness) MS symptoms.
Here's what has NOT changed for me since I was in my 20's: severe fatigue, headaches (go in spurts), nausea (off and on), tightness in chest, depression, anxiety, and MEMORY issues. What I really found odd was that in my 20's I CRAVED sugar, just like I do now. Here I thought this was a kind of new symptom; turns out it is very old! I also had itchy skin then and I still do today--probably even worse today though.
Do any of you experience depression/anxiety as one of your major symptoms? If so, I'd like to connect with you to see if we've had similar experiences and if an exacerbation can indeed present itself through major depression.
My depression now is fairly well controlled thanks to wonderful drugs they make now for this.
Since reading these old journals/letters to myself, I've become very curious about the relationship between MS and depression. I know there is a connection, but how much of one? Are mine connected?
But I think I would have been diagnosed then, if I had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. I just complained everything seemed out of control....without explaining what was out of control. I'm single no one could describe changes in me. I think if hospitaslized the change would have been more obvious.
I now think that MS symptoms that I couldn't control depressed me to the point I was thinking suicide. But I didn't say it, so he could only offer to admit me not force me to admission.
10 years prior to that I had ON and an opthamologist told me I might have MS. I didn't know what that was, it went away, I didn't worry about it.
Just before my clinical depression diagnosis, my cheek went numb. I saw a doc about it, he polked it a few times and agreed with me I couldn't feel it & not worry about it, because these thing happen & they clear up.
I was getting lost all the time, I felt out of control of that. I was unable to control my bladder, I went on a blind date. I was the blind date from hell when I emptied my bladder.I worked in a paper mill, so when I wet my pants, I would go measure dryer can temperatures. 60" diameter cans at about 560deg F., my jeans would dry on me. I had what I now realize were intention tremors. I din't shake all the time, just when I tried to do something deliberately. My hand shook too much to change a light bulb & I lived alone. So I moved around with the light from the street lights at night, comming through my windows. Eating was a real effort to get fork to mouth. I'd quit after a few forksloads. I lost alot of weight. It supported a clinical depression diagnosis.
But I didn't view symptoms, I viewed it as something I couldn't control & I just wanted to be dead. That's what the psychiatrist was treating.
I believe I really was depressed, but it was caused by MS symptoms I couldn't control. Not a lesion located somewhere causing depression. It was the symptoms from MS, I didn't understand nor could I control.
I was about 32 at the time.I was 22 when I had ON and an opthamalogist told me I might have MS. I was diagnosed finally at 41 with significant episode. Diagnosed within 3 hours of going to Walk-in clinic. Then transfered to ER at their discretion. In same building(walk-in clinic operated by hospital). Then had MRI where a doc told me there was no doubt I had MS & I had had it a long time. This was all within 3 hours. No waiting for blood test results, no taking a physical descriptions of past symptoms. Just an MRI, they didn't even send it out to be read. Doc looked at it in MRI room & said this is MS. Told me I could get as many 2nd opinions as I wanted because any doc in the hospital would look at my MRI and diagnosis MS...
Next morning I meet the neuro on call. I read the medical records from that day. The neuro took my past medical history, then he charted "probable MS, I will be happy to look at MRI films & see Lynn at my office" Next time he charted "definite MS", after he had looked at the MRI.
So I had MS when I was treated for clinical depression. And I dio think they were actual MS symptoms that caused my depression....
The good news is the longer a person hasd MS without visible disability, the less agressive is that MS. And it's likely to remain less at that level of aggressiveness. It's the people who had no indication of MS, then are rapidly affected who have an aggressive case of MS. The longer one can trace the symptoms back, the better it is for them.
any symptoms i had as a kid were dissed..."it's all in your head".
at 16 my eyesight had the first significant change, tho i remember visual problems as early as 7.
only at 16 i was able to get help myself...lol told i needed more sleep!
as i replied at a recent post, there were more severe incremental changes that took place over the years.
mainstay symptoms thru-out were vision (tho 20/20 til 2 years ago at 47), depression, memory and concentration, weight loss, leg numbness, lower back numbness, ibs at high stress times-good or bad, lethargy and dizziness.
i have a lifetime history of ear infections, sinus infections and bronchitis.
my sister reminded me two weeks ago how i used to tell her i felt like i was dying but not a dr around could figure out what was wrong. and i thought if i could only "know"...i could then understand and deal with it.
when i got my dx on april 19th of this year tho scared, i was greatful. guess that's why i've never been angry about having ms and am willing to disclose it to anyone interested.
boy, i "feel" for the guys and gals out there with no official dx!!! xoxokatie
"You're too young to have headaches"
Nothing I tried to explain could be SEEN.
It was all "in my head"
well, DUH! they were RIGHT... it DID turn out to be ALL in my HEAD. a lesion here, a lesion there, here a lesion, there a lesion, everywhere a lesion lesion. old McLarry had a brain, ei i ei i oh oh oh
My Neuro even thought the fact that I was a clutz since early childhood may have been indicative of MS but I was't diagnosed until I was 42.
Larry
Yesterday,I just wrote in my journal about this very thing. I can't believe for years I thought it was normal for me to feel so bad. You can read my journal(i think). I am not dx at this time. My husband wants me to go back but I don't want to until I get really bad so the dr. can see what is. He thinks I should go because I do have troubles. They come and go sometimes in minutes and others in days. That's life. I have had trouble in my teens where the dr. said I was hypoglycemic, tested for diabetes and said I had stress issues(relax). Ha ok I'll do that.I remember my mom saying that "you have memory problems eat sunflower seeds". I can go on and on. I truly thought people felt the way I did and it was normal. I am 41 now. YIKES! I hope its a smoother road for you now and stay positive as much as possible. Beth
Having MS is depressing enough BUT apparently MS does cause a chemical imbalance (like reducing your Seratonin levels). Good-news Bad-news about having MS so long ago. If you had got an 'official diagnosis' you might have been able to start one of the MS drugs BUT then you also couldn't get Life Insurance or private medical coverage.
Like I said, good news bad news :-)
Larry
Went from dr to dr years later. No one could find anything wrong. Since moving out west in 1980 I was finally dx'd with probible M.S.
Still being in denial for another 10 years. Then my boss, at thyat time, took me to see another neuro who told me I had too many "valleys" in my brain for a person my age. Not one word, however, that I had M.S.
Afterall these years thinking I had M.S.! Noe my new neuro tells me, after an MRI & LP
that there was NO evidence of M.S. O.K., so what do I have? The nurse calls me and tells me I have "WHITE MATTER DISEASE". DUH? Isn't that M.S.? I won't get any answers un til the 25th of Sept. What the heck is going here??? LOL!