MS-related brain fog affects many people living with MS. In fact, it's estimated that more than half of people living with MS will develop cognitive issues. People may experience such things as forgetfulness, trouble concentrating, and confusion.
Many people with MS experience dizziness, in which you feel light-headed or off-balance, notes the NMSS. A less-common MS symptom is vertigo. When you have vertigo, you feel as though your surroundings are spinning around you, Dr.
Brain fog can be a symptom of a nutrient deficiency, sleep disorder, bacterial overgrowth from overconsumption of sugar, depression, or even a thyroid condition. Other common brain fog causes include eating too much and too often, inactivity, not getting enough sleep, chronic stress, and a poor diet.
Brain fog can be your first MS symptom, or it can appear after you have a diagnosis. Brain fog can interrupt your daily routine by causing you to become absentminded.
Focus on doing one task at a time in a quiet, distraction-free space. Use the time of day you have the most energy for the most difficult tasks. Ask family and friends to speak more slowly to give you more time to process information. Practice deep breathing to reduce the stress and frustration of brain fog.
MS can take a toll on mental sharpness. Some people may find it takes longer to solve problems. Others may have mild memory loss or trouble concentrating. Most people with MS also experience some loss of bladder control, because signals between the brain and bladder are interrupted.
But if you have MS, your doctor might give them to you to help with “brain fog.” That's when you can't think very clearly or focus on a task. Common stimulants include: Methylphenidate. Amphetamine/dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine)
Common symptoms include fatigue, bladder and bowel problems, sexual problems, pain, cognitive and mood changes such as depression, muscular changes and visual changes. See your doctor for investigation and diagnosis of symptoms, since some symptoms can be caused by other illnesses.
Those symptoms include loss of vision in an eye, loss of power in an arm or leg or a rising sense of numbness in the legs. Other common symptoms associated with MS include spasms, fatigue, depression, incontinence issues, sexual dysfunction, and walking difficulties.
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.
Vertigo may cause you to feel like you are floating, tilting, swaying, or whirling. Most cases of vertigo are caused by inner ear disorders, which send signals to your brain that aren't consistent with the signs your eyes and sensory nerves are receiving.
Causes of lightheadedness may be dehydration, medication side effects, sudden blood pressure drops, low blood sugar, and heart disease or stroke. Feeling woozy, lightheaded, or a little faint is a common complaint among older adults.
Dizziness has many possible causes, including inner ear disturbance, motion sickness and medication effects. Sometimes it's caused by an underlying health condition, such as poor circulation, infection or injury. The way dizziness makes you feel and your triggers provide clues for possible causes.
When nerve pathways are damaged, the brain may not receive sensory information normally. When this happens, a variety of sensory symptoms can occur. It's estimated that about 80 percent of people with MS experience sensory symptoms, which include numbness and tingling.
Head pressure is both an invisible and subjective MS symptom. The sensation of pressure can feel different to different people. This can make pressure hard to define and measure: The feeling can range from barely noticeable to unbearably painful, and everything in between.
Sensory symptoms are the most common symptom of MS, with up to 90% of those with MS reporting some form of numbness and tingling. The main sensory symptoms include numbness, tightness, tingling or burning.
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.
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.
Muscle spasms: They usually affect your leg muscles. They're an early symptom for almost half the people with MS. They also affect people with progressive MS. You might feel mild stiffness or strong, painful spasms.
Fatigue in MS is not just an ordinary tiredness, like you might get at the end of a hard day's work. People describe it as an overwhelming sense of tiredness with no obvious cause. You may wake up feeling as tired as you did when you went to sleep.
Cluster headaches have been linked to MS lesions in the brainstem, especially in the part where the trigeminal nerve originates. 7 This is the nerve involved with trigeminal neuralgia—one of the most painful MS symptoms.
People may experience such things as forgetfulness, trouble concentrating, and confusion. Brain fog is also referred to as “brain haze” or “cog fog” — short for cognitive fog. As we know, MS is a disease of the central nervous system that affects the brain and spinal cord.
A change in cognitive function or cognitive dysfunction is common in MS — more than half of all people with MS will develop problems with cognition. It may have been your first symptom of MS.
Brain fog stems from issues related to an unhealthy or injured brain. Most of the potential causes for brain fog are regularly diagnosed and treated by functional neurologists.