Poor sleep quality is common in people with MS and has been associated with lower quality of life and even higher mortality in previous studies. Some of the risk factors for poor sleep include a greater level of disability and specific MS symptoms, including fatigue, depression, anxiety and cognitive difficulties.
Contents. 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.
People with MS often say they sleep poorly at night and are fatigued in the daytime. In the general population the three most common sleep problems reported are insomnia, sleep apnea, and restless leg syndrome (RLS). Research suggests that people with MS are even more likely to have all of these problems.
Unfortunately, more than half of people with MS experience difficulty sleeping. Inadequate sleep leads to fatigue, the most common and one of the most debilitating symptoms of MS.
Communicating with friends and family can help you relate your condition to them, but there is nothing better than connecting with other people that are living with MS. There are MS Focus support groups in many communities that offer meetings. There are also support groups online if you can't make an in-person meeting.
Constant fatigue is common for people with MS. This tiredness can impact all aspects of life, including effective brain use and the ability to go out and partake in activities. The symptoms of MS can cause constant discomfort and disability that limit a person's ability to go about daily activities.
Disease Course of MS Is Unpredictable
A person with benign MS will have few symptoms or loss of ability after having MS for about 15 years, while most people with MS would be expected to have some degree of disability after that amount of time, particularly if their MS went untreated.
Muscle spasms and stiffness: Movement throughout the day can help to loosen muscles and bring relief, but they get worse again during sleep when they are still. 2. Pain: Nerve and muscular pain, common types of MS pain, may worsen at night and interfere with sleep.
Primary fatigue is caused by MS damage in the brain and spinal cord. And lots of processes might be involved. One idea from researchers is that passing messages around nerve damage takes extra energy.
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.
Depression, persistent anxiety and extreme irritability are not natural or inevitable, even in people with MS. However, they are very common. These changes require treatment just like any of the physical symptoms of the disease; mood changes can be a significant source of pain and distress in and of themselves.
In relationships
People with MS and their partners tell us living with the condition can create both physical and emotional barriers, which can put a strain on relationships. For some couples, worries about MS and uncertainty about the future can cause a breakdown in communication and intimacy.
In many patients, over a span of 5 to 15 years, the attacks begin more indolently, persist more chronically and remit less completely, gradually transforming into a pattern of steady deterioration rather than episodic flares. This pattern is referred to as secondary progressive MS.
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.
It is linked to MS-related damage in the brain. People experiencing disinhibition lose control over their impulses, leading to inappropriate behaviour and a loss of their sense of social rules. They may have little or no awareness of others' feelings regarding their actions.
Although more people are being diagnosed with MS today than in the past, the reasons for this are not clear. Likely contributors include greater awareness of the disease, better access to medical care and improved diagnostic capabilities. There is no definitive evidence that the rate of MS is generally on the increase.
While many with MS will experience depression or anxiety at some point, more rarely, some people experience changes to their emotions or behaviour that don't seem to make sense, or that they aren't able to control.
Cranial nerve damage or inflammation could contribute to a feeling of pressure in your head. The optic nerve relays visual messages to the CNS so inflammation or damage to or near it can cause blurred vision, double vision, loss of vision, and pain.
Conclusion. People living with MS can face additional challenges with seasonal changes. Winter, with its lower temperatures, can lead to difficulties in walking, the use of hands or spasms. Yet, one must also pay attention to high temperatures when inside, as heat can worsen MS symptoms such as fatigue.
Outlook. The outlook for benign MS isn't clear. Some people who are diagnosed with it never go on to have a more serious disease progression, while others do. Remember, just because you have mild symptoms when you're first diagnosed with MS doesn't mean that they'll stay that way.
Here's where MS (typically) starts
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. Spinal cord inflammation, or what's called partial transverse myelitis, is the second most common symptom Shoemaker typically sees.
Only about one-third of people with MS use wheelchairs 20 years after diagnosis. When we think of MS, most of us imagine a person who is unable to walk. MS does affect gait, mobility, muscle strength, and flexibility, but not for everyone.