Multiple Sclerosis
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Personal History with Relapsing / Remitting Multiple Sclerosis
| I was diagnosed in October 1991.
It was my junior
year of college and my family lived on the other side of
the country from me. It began one morning as a numbness in the
soles of my feet and over the next week it progressed rapidly up my legs.
I began to have trouble
with my balance and was fatigued all the time. The student health service doctors had a hard time figuring it out and I even went to a chiropractor who was sure it was a pinched nerve (I was an active weightlifter at the time). When the numbness spread to my chest and I could barely make it up the 3 flights of stairs to my dorm room, the campus doctor sent me to a neurologist. The neurologist ran me through a few basic motor skills and sensory tests before proclaiming that I probably had a disease of which I had never even heard! I was promptly scheduled for an MRI to confirm his tentative diagnosis. I did not realize I was claustrophobic until they stuck me in that tube for about 60 minutes worth of testing. I was foolish and started thinking about being buried alive and next thing I know I was on the edge of hyperventilating. They let me out for a brief rest before running the rest of the tests. Somehow I made it through with my sanity intact. A few days later I get a phone call from the Neurologist who curtly informed me I had MS, the prognosis was not good and I could eventually die from this disease! I was shocked and angry that he would have the gall to tell me this over the phone and not in person! I met with him a few days later and all he had to give me was a prescription for Prozac. He said that I would have to be on it for life to get through day to day life! Apparently he was also a psychologist as well as a neurologist. His opinion was that all MS patients were Type A personalities (not true) and that in the brief time he had talked to me - he had decided I was also a Type A personality (if you knew me, you'd know that is far from true). He believed I needed to be on Prozac to treat my "personality disorder". Again I was angered by this insensitive man! I turned to the MS society and began to become better educated. My first exacerbation lasted 9 weeks. I think it was that long only because I was so stressed from the symptoms without knowing the cause. Every night I was sure I would die in my sleep since I didn't know what was wrong with me and I kept getting worse. As things started to ebb, I began to eat better, get back into weightlifting, get more sleep and I even tried out snow boarding! Snowboarding had been great for me, when I get too hot and have optic neuritis, I sit in the snow and cool off. I've had about 4 relapses since then, but all were mild in comparison. I know what's wrong and take steps right away to chill out and take better care of myself. My last little bout was right before my knee surgery. My whole right side of my body went numb overnight. It was my body telling me COOL OUT! For me, I can pinpoint all my exacerbations to an increase in stress (among other things). It seems to be a way that my body gets my attention when I'm overusing it, abusing it or stressing it out. When I'm in remission, I'm ambulatory with some pretty serious balance troubles and patches on skin on my belly and back that have never regained full sensation since the first episode. The patches even feel cool to the touch and have a different texture. So I try my best to take care of myself but stress seems to be my number one enemy.
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