sunshine2165 said...
i i was wondering if any of you have had optic N and if so how long it took your vision to go back to normal and what helped the most. ive had it since may but just got the iv and oral steroids about a month ago well i finished the oral 2 wks ago. its in my right eye - my vision isnt gone its just a much dimmer color and at times depending on the light im in kinda bright or foggy looking. am i just being unrealistic thinking it should be perfect by now or does this mean its not going to get better? i think i keep haiving the so called ms hug. occasionally i will start to feel like i cant breath or im having to make myself breath. what helps with that? even though i had the steroids is it normal im still having ralapse symptoms? tired,tingling mainly when i look down, breathing, eye, and my left eye will ever so ofton start moving out of my control. help does this mean my ms is worse than the dr thought?
sunshine
I'm sorry you're continuing to have problems. You'll find that sometimes steroids will help and most of the symptoms will disappear entirely. Other times they won't be of as much help, and some symptoms will stay -- that's called "residual symptoms". And somethings will be with you always. For example, I've always had numbness and tingling in my feet, from the year or so before I even knew I had MS, 24 years ago.
The effects of optic neuritis generally clear up over several months, sometimes 6 months or more before vision can be completely back to normal. And sometimes they don't disappear entirely.
The MS hug can come and go, sometimes depending on your level of fatigue, your level of energy, all that. If it is particularly troublesome, sometimes some of the medicines used to help with spasticity will help with that, as it is caused by spastic muscles in your torso.
It doesn't mean your MS is "worse than the doctor thought". All that you describe are pretty typical long-term MS symptoms. MS is, after all, a chronic disease, meaning it will be with you always, and these things are "reminders" that you have the disease. Remember too that MS continues to create problems in your central nervous system..lesions can develop on the brain and/or spinal chord, for example, without you necessarily knowing it. If the destruction becomes severe enough, that's when you might have another serious exacerbation.
I know you're reluctant to start one of the CRABS..but that's their purpose: to try to slow the course of the disease, slow down the number of exacerbations, slow down the inevitable progression of the disease. Until they can cure MS, that's the best we have going for us, for now.