Hi, I’ll give a little background as never posted before. I was diagnosed with MS about 8 years ago but up until now have had mild numbness in my legs, which has got progressively worse over the years but liveable with and not really caused any problems other than my choice of shoes. I had a baby in feb and following this had my first official relapse causing a lack of coordination in one leg hardly allowing me to walk, thankfully following steroids this resolved. I do get trouble with this leg when I am physically tired, however this has been recently happening over the last few days on very little exertion whereas before with a lot of exertion. My question is do you think this could be a relapse or a pseudo relapse, as this symptom isn’t there all the time, only on walking for very short distances and when rested it diminishes. I don’t get over heated when walking.
I’m not sure it would be a new relapse really, I find my last relapse has left symptoms that come and go a bit randomly and I can’t always see a pattern regarding how much I do with how bad I feel. It is very muggy/hot feeling at the moment and I have not felt good for the last few days really.
Hi,
Technically a pseudo relapse just means a worsening of symptoms due to either infection, heat, tiredness or any other contributing factor whereas a ‘true’ relapse is any worsening of existing symptoms or development of new symptoms that lasts for longer than 24 hours in the absence of infection, heat, tiredenss etc…
If the weather has been very hot and muggy as zedsee said that may be enough to do it. I usually feel crap in summer
But the usual rule is to rule out any underlying infection and often with MS a UTI can be the culprit even if you don’t have any obvious symptoms of one. It may be worth a trip to your GP to get your wee tested and then if that is all clear a call to your MS Nurse may be in order for some advice and also just to let her know what is happening.
In the meantime if the weather is hot (I live in Australia and trust me it is NOT hot here at present) try putting a damp towel around your neck, drinking iced drinks and staying in front of a fan as much as possible to keep your core temperature down.
But since you are saying it is happening more frequently when walking with relatively little exertion and you are not overly hot, I’d be checking the wee first (assuming you haven’t got any other obvious infection such as a cold or anything?) and talking to your MS Nurse.
All the best,
B