Hello,

i am new here and am 34 years old. I suspected I had ms for about 10 years, but was 'officially' diagnosed 4 days ago, after a long process. My mother has ms also, and was diagnosed at 34 also. It took about 8 years for her to be officially diagnosed.

I am 32 (the oldest on this so far) four months ago I had a tia (minor stroke)-it woke me up from a peaceful sleep with numbness on my right side and tingling. It lasted for 24 hours.
My doctor first bought up ms when she saw me. I recenlty told her I don't want to know just yet if I have the disease but I see it in her eyes. Lately I feel a decline in my health again and I cry often. I suffer bad headaches and wonder if tonight will be the night this disease will surface again. I guess I cannot hold a blind eye any longer and on wednesday I will walk in her office and finally get the mri. It's a comfort to not see you are alone. I long for my old health and see so many people walk past me full of life...Wondering what went wrong with me.
It's been nice to write this down. I have been bottling in for so long
thank you

And regain your life. I know of a great alternative to medication that has had a profound and in some cases a miraculous effect on individuals with ms. I would be happy to share and even get those people on the phone with you , so they can tell their stories. Everyone that has ms should have this information and I would love to help you regain optimal health and wellness.


All my best,


erik

Hello everyone, i'm 29 and was just diagnosed a few months ago (a week after my birthday). I'm sorry to say it but i'm glad I don't have it as bad as some of the sotries i've read here. I woke up one morning with almost no vision in my right eye. At first I thought it was nothing, just from sleeping funny or something, but 3 days later it was still like that so I went to see an optician. She ran some tests and referred me to a specialist up the street, so I went there, ran the same tests, and was referred to will's eye hospital here in philly. More of the same tests and an mri and they suggested ms. I knew very little about it and it scared me to death and I think that was the first time I cried with real tears in years. Even more-so when they told me about the great neurosurgeon who'd be helping me. I freaked out when I heard "neurosurgeon" thinking "does that mean they have to operate??" I stayed in the hospital for 4 nights on cortosone and cried myself to sleep for the first 2 nights because I was still freaked out and they weren't telling me all of the details. When I finally heard more I was more okay with it.

Now i'm on rebif and everything is pretty much back to normal. My right eye is not completely back, but I can read with it. My left pinky finger is sometimes a little weird and I occasionally get cramps in one hand or the other, one morning I woke up early because of it. Sometimes my extreme short-term memory seams worse than it was before. Quite often now i'll open a web browser and by the time it's loaded I can't remember what web page I wanted to look at or i'll walk into another room and then can't remember what I wanted in there. But I always remember after a minute or so. Anyway, that's the end of my novella, hope I didn't bore you. :)

I am 25 yr old, female. I've probably had mild ms all of my life, i'm thinking.
I have had mild symptoms of ms, all of my life. I was born with a blood infection, & it went from there. I have a lot neurological problems. I have had 3 or 4 seizures throughout my life.
I also have problems with learning. My thinking is sometimes not all that clear. Sometimes I have balance & coordination problems. Sometimes I stare off for no apparent reason.
I always have hand tremors, it gets really bad when I get nervous. I get really worried & a lot of anxiety problems. I have problems remembering things, get confused sometimes.
Recently I went to a new neurologist & he did a office consultation, then he suspected I had multiple sclerosis. So then he wanted an mri done on me. So then I had the mri done. (my mri showed some leisons on my brain/white matter/ fluid) & my Dr. Told my husband & I that I have mild symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
Before I was diagnosed with mild symptoms of ms. I was always told I had a seizure disorder, traumatic brain injury, vestibular bilateral integration disorder. Before my mri was done I never knew I had mild symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
I'm not really up-set about the mild ms. Just a little more relieved to know what I have. Before I wasn't clear about a diagnosis to my disability.
My Dr. Said if my symptoms get worse he wants to do a comparison mri to see if it's full on multiple sclerosis.
I really hope I wasn't to confusing about what I said. With me & my brain I can get sort of confusing. I hope what I wrote, people can understand what I am saying.

hello, i'm 22 and I was recently diagnosed with ms this past february. It started off with the left side of my body going numb and three trips to the emergency room. The doctors finally conducted an mri and a spinal tap and concluded that I had ms. I've had vision loss for up to 2 weeks as well as shooting pains in my body and numbness. It really freaky and its been hard for me to find someone around my age to talk with about this. Most people i've talked with are married and in their 30s and 40s. Its also really scary, as my ms has yet to go into remission. I continue to have things happen to me. I've been on the medication that doc's prescribe such as the injections, but they are less than 30% effective and are more painful than anything. There is plenty to say about ms and its effects. I tend to lean toward more alternative medicaiton than what the doc's want to put you one too.

Hi all - I am 22. I have been having various symptoms of ms for 3 months, but in retrospect, I have been having them for much longer than that (i.E. Balance problems, trembling muscles, concentration problems). The symptoms that I am showing are muscle pain/weakness, neck pain, blurry vision, dizziness, loss of function in my right leg, headaches all the time, tingling in extremities, trembling, muscle contractions, forgetting what I am doing or saying, 'spacing out'...I could go on and on. I am getting an mri tomorrow; my doc told me that the signs that I have been showing are symptoms of ms. I am going to a neurologist on monday. To be honest, I am really scared, but I don't know which is worse - finding out that I do have ms, or finding out that I don't, thus not getting any answers.

I don't really have anything else to say but thanks, I guess. If I do have ms, then I know that there are a lot of people who are willing to talk about it. I don't know anyone who has it...

Thanks for listening. This is really the first time I have said any of this "out loud".

Hi everyone, i'm new to this group...New to ms...Not positive that I have ms yet (in serious denial). I'm 29 years old. About three weeks ago I lost vision in my left eye. I was diagnosed with optic neuritis and most of my vision is back in my eye now-i just lack some color saturation. I was put on three days of iv steriods (horrible side effects) by the neuro opthamalogist that diagnosed me. He told me that they are supposed to prevent ms for about 18 months (i'm in a study group). He never told me I had ms nor did he discuss my mri any further it showed that my optic nerve was inflamed. A week later I recieved a letter in the mail which was a copy of what he sent to my primarmy physcian. The letter had the optic neurosis diagnosis but also stated that a few t2 lesions were seen on my mri. Yesterday, I had an apt with my neurologist that I see for adhd. I told him about what happened and gave him the mri to look at. He came back and told me that I have ms because I have a few lesions and had optic neuritis. He wants me to start on avonex but I told him that I wanted to do some research before I start on any medication. He seems quick to want to dispense drugs and he only saw me for about 15 minutes yesterday. He didn't seem interested in the fact that the Dr. Had put me on iv meds he just wants me to start on this medication.

The timing of this couldn't be worse. I've been going to college for almost 8 years part time towards my bachelors degree and i'm in my final two classes. The bout with optic neuritis set me back where I had to catch up which has been difficult considering I work a full time job. I will finish my degree though-i'm determined.

Now for the ms stuff-my mri showed lesions however I read that 77% of people have t2 lesions on their mris. This is also my first experience with ms. I read the side effects for the meds and it says that it gives flu like symptoms and makes you feel crappy. I'm pretty athletic-love my trips to the gym and I eat healthy. I have a feeling that if I do have ms that my optic neuritis was caused by stress. I was exteremely busy at work (it field) and learning how to do new things there. One of my classes is c programming and if I wasn't on a computer doing work I was doing home work - struggling through the class (taking this one online). I have my commute work/home and my 40 mile commute to school for my other class and I tend to get wound up. I live with my bf and i'm pretty domestic, cooking dinner and stuff so I get that stuff done too. I often don't voice my stress and tend to hold stuff in rather then complain or tell people when they upset me. I have tmj from stress and holding stuff in so I have a feeling that if I can control my stress and not let things get to me that I can prevent having another ms attack (if that's what I have).

I really don't want to tell my parents or my boyfriend - they knew about the eye and it was tough enough dealing with them when I had that. My parents were fussing over me and being a pain in the rear (i know it's cause they love me). They also complained that my bf wasn't doing enough but that's only because I didn't want him to. When I was on the iv I did it at my parents house since my dad's retired so he'd be home just in case something happened. They live right around the corner so I drove and they got upset that my bf didn't drive me. I didn't want him to though-i was alright doing that and he's a truck driver so he's tired when he gets home from work. He did take me to my parents the one day to get my iv and my dad is making comments because I had my head on his shoulder cause the iv made me feel ill and my bf makes me feel better (rubs my head and stuff) so all they did was add to my stress. My bf got weird at first - both his parents died young-the only people that are close to him are me and his daughter (not my child from someone else a looooong time ago). I think it freaked him out that something might happened to me so he pulled away for a few days but then he came through and was there. He was afraid of "breaking" me though.

That's why I don't want them to know if they don't have to. I don't want people feeling weird around me or treating me different. Yeah, if I don't feel well now or then (like everyone does) it's nice to be babied but otherwise I want to just be me.

Most of this is just a vent-but I really want to just do all I can do in the time I can just in case this ends up disableing me. I want to travel and be active (not running myself down though) and not waste my time. I pretty much started living like that after 9/11 anyway (since that brought to my attention that any day could be the day you "go") but I just want to keep that up.

Any advice or anyone who wants to be an email buddy would be great-since i'm on a computer most of the day. Thanks for letting me vent and thanks for your posts-they make me feel like i'm not alone, ya know???

Everyone knows young is a state of mind anyway...

I am (almost) 32, and I discovered my ms a few months ago. It depresses the hell out of me. But i'm still getting married, and I still have no plan (yet) to go home. This is sort of the key question for us expat types: what would make you go back?

So far, this has failed in forcing me to return to the us. (i live in morocco.) there is avonex here, but no one knows about it since ms is pretty rare in the arabic population. Besides, it's still expensive.

If you're not alone, then neither am i. Even way the hell over here.

Hi,
I'm 18 and just been diagnosed a few months ago although I had my first attack when I was 14 so really I've had it for nearly 4 years.
I've been feeling alone too - I've met nobody here with MS that's even close to my age.
It's good to know there are people out there (well it's not good, but comforting!)

I'm 49 with Multiple Sclerosis been diagnosed seven years ago. I use a cane ,but most of all I a great(support my husband and son.

For the last few months has been challenging for me.In some ways I've been selfish and not dealing with the affects of my condition. Which has been affecting my memory daily.My husband has handled it like the man God has chosen for me.
I'm truly bless to have him

Hello everybody! I don't know why but it seems weird for me to write about my MS to a virtual public.But where are my manners? I am a 25 year old girl.I have been diagnosed with MS at the age of 20.That is when I had my first serious seizure-it took me 6 months to get over it,to be at least human again coz my seizure unfortunately deteriorated due to other medical issues, I had very big problems and now I can say I am perfectly fine,my health is in good shape although sometimes all this talk about MS gets me down.I wanna be just like the others,but I can't.Definitely I am one of the MS kind,coz I am scared,I feel confused and I am afraid of the future.Thus,I am willing to fight against this common enemy until it will be extinct.I wish for all of us to get better one day!

A male, had the disease for 12 years before I chose to take drugs. At that point, I was having double vision problems, extreme weakness in legs,and near debilitating fatigue. Due to this fatigue, I had gained weight and felt awful. Started on a study where I am either taking Avonex, Copaxone, or both. Since then, I have lost 30 lbs, run in several 10k races, and a half marathon. I would recommend the drugs to anyone who is suffering from some of the above mentioned symptoms. There are side effects, but IMO it is a price worth paying.

Hi My name is Tia!

I was just diagnosed with MS about 2 and a half weeks ago. I just turned 26 in January. I have two children so this is a rough blow to me. I was told that I have probably had it for a while now and not realized the symptoms.

About a month and a half ago two of my fingers went numb and I never really thought anything of it. I am always tired as well, but I figured it was because I was a mom, and rarely sleep!
Well on February 8th, my toes on both feet were numb in the morning. By mid afternoon my feet were pretty numb. I left the house to go get my oldest son from the bus stop. I had to carry my younger one because he likes to run off. I noticed it was getting really hard to walk. By the time I got back to my house I was stomping my feet. I had a really difficult time getting back up the stairs to get in the house. Over the next few hours the numbness spread up to my calfs. By the end of the evening it was up to my thighs. My best friend wanted to take me to the ER but I wouldn't let her because I had no one to watch my kids. My husband is in the Navy and was on DUTY and wouldnt be home until the next day.

So I get up that next morning and am numb from the waist down, and when I try to walk, I would just shake really badly. I called up my best friend and we were off to the ER. We were there getting and EKG and Xrays and a CAT scan done. Finally a few hours later they told me that I would be admitted and get an MRI and a Spinal tap. So, I ended up in the hospital for four days. They diagnosed me the day before I left the hospital. That was the 13th.
I am home now, but have yet to get the feeling back in my legs. I am walking better because I am used to it.....but still not feeling it. I struggle daily.....I can't even carry my baby, it is difficult.......but I am trying my hardest to stay positive!!

Does anyone feel the onset of their MS had anything to do with prolotherapy? My daughter developed MS about a year after going through a lengthy prolotherapy for her neck. Many of the injection hit nerves.
Has anyone have success with a raw food diet to heal MS. It works great for other autoimmune system diseases
Thanks!
EV

My mom prob has the worse case of MS ever and she is 42, (she had me young) but I take care of her and have for the last 10 years. She has it so bad that drs think she should have died by now. anyone wanna talk to me, write me. I dont have it yet thank god but I have experienced it first hand and may be helpful to some others you know! Oh I am 26.

Hello! I am 20 and just officially diagnosed about 1 month ago. I am turning 21 this August so I was looking for people my age as well with MS and was wondering how they go about their social lives like with college, work, and going out. I am surprised to read that I am not the only young person, everyone I have talked to has been a lot older then me! I would be happy to hear from anyone in how they are or just talk.
I never had an episode really, they found it because I have been complaining of migraine headaches for more than 10 years. They found the lesions, took a spinal mri, found a lesion there, did a spinal tap and it came back positive. I didn't get put on a treatment right away though because the symptons I was having lasted for a few hours but nothing as long as 24 hours long. They finally put me on treatment and officially diagnosed me after I did another follow up mri after I was in a car accident on the 8th of april. I had two really big active lesions and they didn't hesitate, I had to pick a treatment. I am on copaxone because I didn't want any flu-like symptons since I go to school and work and everything. I take a shot every day.
I would really appreciate if other people shared their stories with me. I want to know if other people were diagnosed with this and are able to still go out and celebrate their 21st birthday. =) Friends with this would also help especially with the treatment I am on.

--Rachael (Buffalo, NY)

im 18... Im looking for young people with ms to talk to

Hi I am new to this website. I am 23 and I was just diagnosed with ms about 3 weeks ago. I'm still taking it very hard. I was very active with exercise before this. My first attack was about a year ago. My rt side of my face went numb as well as that side of my tongue I lost taste. The back of my head could not feel anything. They tried to tell me I had bells palsy. My spinal tap was inconclusive so they dismissed it. I went to other doctors and now i have more lesions on my brain. I'm about to take the drug copaxone probably within a few weeks. I would definately love to talk to people my age or anyone who can offer support. Let me know if you'd like to exchange emails or something thanks