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.
Numbness of the face, body, or extremities (arms and legs) is often the first symptom experienced by those eventually diagnosed as having MS.
It's also common early on in the disease to experience long intervals between relapses. Later, as MS progresses, people may have difficulty with tremors, coordination, and walking. They may find that their relapses become more frequent, and that they are less able to recover from them.
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.
Canadian research shows people with MS are more likely than the general population to visit a doctor or hospital in the years leading up to an MS diagnosis.
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.
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.
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.
Steppage gait (also known as neuropathic gait) is characterized by drop foot — an MS symptom in which the front part of the foot drops and does not lift up correctly with the rest of the leg while walking. In a person with drop foot, the toes point downward and may drag or scrape on the ground while walking.
About 15% of patients will never necessitate assistance with ambulation, while 5-10% will do so within 5 years, and another 10% will do so in 15 years. Average patient will take about 28 years from the point of diagnosis to necessitate assistance while walking, and will be about 60 years of age.
MS itself is rarely fatal, but complications may arise from severe MS, such as chest or bladder infections, or swallowing difficulties. The average life expectancy for people with MS is around 5 to 10 years lower than average, and this gap appears to be getting smaller all the time.
With MS, when you don't stay with your treatment, there's the chance that the disease will continue unchecked. That means your immune system can go on causing inflammation and damage in your central nervous system. And “time is brain”: If there's damage, it can be permanent -- you may not get that function back.
People may experience blurred vision, double vision, eye pain or loss of color vision. Difficulty articulating words or swallowing and slurred speech may occur if there's damage to the area that controls the mouth and throat.
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.
Symptoms can appear suddenly and then vanish for years after the first episode, or in some cases never reappear. The symptoms of MS vary greatly and can range from mild to severe. Most people suffer minor effects.
Most symptoms develop abruptly, within hours or days. These attacks or relapses of MS typically reach their peak within a few days at most and then resolve slowly over the next several days or weeks so that a typical relapse will be symptomatic for about eight weeks from onset to recovery. Resolution is often complete.
Vision problems, like blurred or double vision. Dizziness and a lack of coordination. Trouble walking, feeling unsteady, a loss of balance.
Diagnosis and early intervention
As optic neuritis is the presenting sign of MS in up to 30 percent of patients, the eye exam can lead to the initial systemic diagnosis.
MS is usually diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 49 years, though in rare cases MS is observed in childhood and adolescence before the age of 18 years, or at the age of 50 years and later (3). When the onset of the disease occurs at 50 years or older it is conventionally defined as late onset MS (LOMS).
One of the first questions many people have when they're diagnosed with MS is: “Will I still be able to drive?” The good news is that most people with MS continue to drive as normal.
MS patients are all at higher risk for dental issues because of the complications of MS. The disease itself affects the teeth and gums on a biochemical level. The medicine that is used to treat MS can also lead to problems.