My MS Symptoms

This is just a quick post so you have some context for where I’m writing from in terms of my MS symptoms and experience. 

I was diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting MS in May 2015 when I was 27. In June 2014 I had experienced numbness and a loss of feeling starting in my feet which crept all the way up to my waist. I began to have problems with my balance and I couldn’t walk or stand up for more than about 10 minutes without my feet and legs hurting and feeling extremely heavy. When I was at work, I would stand up to walk across the office and realise that my shoes had fallen off my feet and that I hadn’t even noticed because I couldn’t feel them. After about 1 week the numbness receded from my waist, but persisted in my legs and feet. This lasted severely for the whole summer and meant that while I was travelling in Spain I had to have regular breaks and rest in the afternoons (hello siesta time!) Over the following few months, my symptoms got milder but were still present every day and would sometimes get worse. The numbness ended up being pretty consistent beneath my knees, but would sometimes get worse and it would creep further up my legs, and I would feel more exhausted.

A second relapse followed in March 2015 that affected the left hand side of my torso and spread down my left arm to my hand. My left hand and arm felt very heavy and it was exhausting to type on my laptop. This relapse lasted about 1 month, and the numbness in my torso and arm receded, but has persisted intermittently in my left hand.

During my two years of teaching in 2015 -2017 my residual symptoms in my feet, legs and left hand persisted strongly on a daily basis. I had no days without symptoms of some form and the stress of teaching one day even led me to losing the feeling down the centre of my forehead. However, this lasted for less than 24 hours and so wasn’t classed as a relapse.

When I stopped full-time teaching in July 2017 my symptoms improved significantly to the point that I have days without symptoms or when they are barely noticeable.  Between September and December 2017 I went to South America and worked as a tour leader again which involved being very active and my symptoms were mild enough or non-existent to not bother me for the whole 3 months. Since being self-employed, my symptoms have improved a lot and while they do fluctuate in severity, I have many more days when I don’t have numbness and when I have energy, versus days when I do not. What I class as a “bad day” is when I get that full body exhaustion when my whole body feels heavy and I can barely drag myself out of bed. My head feels foggy and I struggle to concentrate on any task. The numbness will spread up to my knees and my left hand and some of my lower left arm will feel numb and very heavy.  So this is a complete representation of my experience of MS until now. If anything changes, I’m sure I’ll write about it elsewhere, but I’ll also update any major changes in symptoms here.

How are your MS symptoms? What do you do to manage them?Let me know by leaving me a comment below.