This may lead to various symptoms, including fatigue, blurry vision, pain, weakness, and numbness.
Your optic nerve is acranial nervethat relays messages to the brain about what the eye sees.
When the myelin surrounding the optic nerve is damaged, signals related to sight are interrupted.
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The common symptoms of optic neuritis include eye pain, blurry vision, and headache.
In some patients, partial or complete vision loss may occur.
The exact symptoms that develop depend on what nerve signaling pathway is being attacked.
Some patients in remission will feel back to themselves, as they did prior to their flare-up.
However, others may not recover completely and continue to experience ongoing symptoms.
Determining whether or not you are having a relapse can be tricky.
Some relapses are more noticeable than others, as in the case of blurry vision with optic neuritis.
Other relapses may be more subtle, such as feeling more tired or off balance.
These are areas that had active inflammation within the past couple of months.
Sometimes what you think is an MS flare-up is really apseudo-exacerbationor pseudo-relapse.
In this case, call your doctor right away or go to your nearest emergency room.
With SPMS, symptoms steadily worsen over time.
Relapses may still occur, but not very often.
Keep in Mind
Secondary progressive MS is different fromprimary progressive MS, or PPMS.
As such, to confirm this shift, doctors use many different strategies.
As they assess your symptoms, they usually consider a timeline of six months to one to two years.
Mobility Issues
Many people with MS experience mobility problems at some point during their disease.
Patients with MS may also experiencemusculoskeletal painstemming from spasticity, muscle weakness, or walking and balance difficulties.
Depression in MS can occur at any time in the course of the disease.
Symptoms that are slowly worsening may be a sign of progression.
Bladder dysfunctionis common in MS and symptoms vary by the extent and location of the damaged nerve pathways.
This is followed by a progressive form of the disease where symptoms slowly worsen, and disability accumulates.
Instead, focus your energy on engaging in overall healthy lifestyle habits, including taking your medication as prescribed.
MS is considered a progressive disease, meaning that neurologic function worsens over time.
The timeline for this progression, however, is unique for each person.
When started early, DMTs can slow MS progression.
Multiple Sclerosis Association of America.Types of multiple sclerosis.
National Multiple Sclerosis Society.Depression and multiple sclerosis.
