Also, some people living with MS experience electrical sensations running through their spine and limbs. No two people have the same combination of MS symptoms.
Many with spinal cord problems and MS have numbness on one side of the body and weakness on the opposite side. They may lose standing balance or have a gait problem characterized by ataxia, such as the inability to walk a straight line. Paralysis and loss of sensation of part of the body are common.
Spinal MS occurs more commonly with lesions in the cervical spine (the neck area) in approximately 67 percent of cases. Lesions in this area often affect the corticospinal tract. Neurological signs which indicate lesions in the corticospinal tract include the Babinski Sign and the Hoffmann Sign.
But the brain isn't the only area where lesions can develop — MS can also attack the spinal cord. Because finding these lesions involves more elaborate imaging tests, spinal cord lesions in MS are studied less often, and many people with MS aren't aware of the role these lesions may play in the disease process.
MS lesions are present throughout the spinal cord, and spinal cord MRI may play an important role in the diagnosis and follow-up of MS patients.
Lesions may be observed anywhere in the CNS white matter, including the supratentorium, infratentorium, and spinal cord; however, more typical locations for MS lesions include the periventricular white matter, brainstem, cerebellum, and spinal cord.
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.
Altered sensations are fairly common in multiple sclerosis. You might feel pins and needles, burning or crawling sensations, numbness or tightness. These unusual sensations are a type of nerve (neuropathic) pain.
A spinal tap can reveal an abnormal immune response caused by MS. However, other conditions can also cause a similar immune response in the spinal fluid. Also, about 5 to 10 percent of people with confirmed MS don't show any abnormalities in their spinal tap results.
A lumbar puncture is a diagnostic test for multiple sclerosis that involves removing and analysing a sample of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord within the skull and backbone. It is sometimes referred to as a spinal tap.
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.
Spinal cord lesions are common in MS. They're found in about 80 percent of people newly diagnosed with MS.
They'll also look for signs of MS, such as: elevated levels of antibodies called IgG antibodies. proteins called oligoclonal bands. an unusually high number of white blood cells.
Blood Tests: Currently, there are no definitive blood tests for diagnosing MS, but they can be used to rule out other conditions that may mimic MS symptoms, including Lyme disease, collagen-vascular diseases, rare hereditary disorders and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
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.
Numbness of the face, body, or extremities (arms and legs) is often the first symptom experienced by those eventually diagnosed as having MS.
Usually, MS facial twitching affects one side of your face at a time. And you may notice other facial symptoms first, like numbness, tingling, weakness, or other weird sensations. “People will usually say, 'My face feels swollen, but I look in the mirror and it's not swollen,'” Stoll says.
Neurological examination
Your neurologist will look for abnormalities, changes or weakness in your vision, eye movements, hand or leg strength, balance and co-ordination, speech and reflexes. These may show whether your nerves are damaged in a way that might suggest MS.
MS is best detected by a neurological examination and painless imaging studies of the brain and spinal cord using magnetic resonance testing (MRI). An ophthalmologist also can use a test called an optical coherence tomography (OCT) to determine if the optic nerve has been affected by MS.
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.
What do MS lesions feel like? Even though the central nervous system is packed with nerve cells, the brain tissue itself does not have so-called noniceptors — the sensory nerve fibers that detect pain and potentially damaging stimuli. Thus, MS lesions themselves cannot be felt.
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.
MRI scans are an important way to help health care providers figure out if a person has MS or not, but MRI scans cannot diagnose MS by themselves. While it is true that almost all people with MS will have lesions on MRI, not all people with MRI lesions have MS.