Talk about how the diagnosis makes you both feel You and your partner may experience strong emotions. The challenge may be to share your thoughts and emotions with your partner in a constructive way so that you can begin to face them together. Know that it's OK to cry, too.
Despite these challenges, research shows people with MS stay married and get divorced at the same rate as the general population. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Survey, two thirds of patients surveyed claimed their relationship stayed the same or improved following their development of MS.
Chronic illness has a harmful effect on marriages, as a study at the University of Michigan found. Researchers found that not only did 31 percent of marriages involving at least one sick partner result in a divorce, but the risk of separation for older couples was higher when the wife was sick, rather than the husband.
MS can cause significant anxiety, distress, anger, and frustration from the moment of its very first symptoms. The uncertainty and unpredictability associated with MS is one of its most distressing aspects. In fact, anxiety is at least as common in MS as depression.
Both men and women with MS may experience difficulty achieving orgasm or loss of libido. You and your partner can benefit from instruction in alternative means of sexual stimulation to overcome slow arousal and impaired sensation. Abnormal sensations and spasms can often be controlled through use of medication.
Average life span of 25 to 35 years after the diagnosis of MS is made are often stated. Some of the most common causes of death in MS patients are secondary complications resulting from immobility, chronic urinary tract infections, compromised swallowing and breathing.
On average, the lifespan for people with MS is about five to 10 years shorter than for the general population, but this gap is getting shorter as treatments and care continue to improve.
Most people with MS can expect to live as long as people without MS, but the condition can affect their daily life. For some people, the changes will be minor. For others, they can mean a loss of mobility and other functions.
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.
Dating someone with MS, or being in a relationship with them, can be a source of happiness and contentment. However, the condition can also be challenging, meaning people may need to adapt their approach to spending quality time together, intimacy, and maintaining an emotional connection.
Families and MS
Your multiple sclerosis diagnosis will have an impact on everyone who loves you, especially family members. They may experience the same wide range of emotions you do as they adapt to living with MS: fear, guilt, anger, denial, grief, anxiety.
MS can put a strain on your marriage or long-term relationships. You might need to rely on your partner for care at times, like helping you bathe or driving you to doctor's appointments. This can be stressful for both of you. Make sure you both give and receive love and attention.
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.
Summary. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system that can affect the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. Common symptoms include fatigue, bladder and bowel problems, sexual problems, pain, cognitive and mood changes such as depression, muscular changes and visual changes.
Pulmonary complications.
MS can weaken the muscles that control the lungs. Such respiratory issues are the major cause of sickness and death in people in the final stages of MS.
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.
feeding difficulties – which may require a feeding tube or result in severe weight loss. difficulties breathing due to weakening of the respiratory muscles. difficulty with speech or losing the ability to speak. pressure sores due to immobility – which are at risk of becoming infected.
Four disease courses have been identified in multiple sclerosis: clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), primary progressive MS (PPMS) and secondary progressive MS (SPMS).
Contents. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance. It's a lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disability, although it can occasionally be mild.
Many people with MS may live for 25 to 35 years or longer after their diagnosis. Survival is improving in MS patients, but chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, depression, or diabetes may lower life expectancy in MS.
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.
Studies have shown that MS disrupts several social cognitive abilities [including empathy and theory of mind (ToM)]. Overall ToM deficits in MS are well documented, but how the specific ToM subcomponents and empathic capacity are affected remains unclear.
Psychotic symptoms reported in MS patients include hallucinations and delusions (mostly paranoid), irritability/agitation, sleep disturbance, grandiosity, blunted affect, and rare symptoms like catatonia and transient catalepsy [45].