Has anyone had a flare up of old symptoms during a cold/bug before? If so how long does it take to resolve afterwards? I’m not sure if I’m having a relapse or if it’s just from my cold but i’ve got a flare up of an old symptom which hasn’t bothered me for a couple of years. It started when my cold was at its worst and hasn’t got any worse but my cold is now nearly gone and it’s still there.
Hi Louise,
I always get worse symptoms during a cold.
In fact, even before I was diagnosed, I used to feel really dreadful (much worse than most people) during colds, and wonder why I was such a wimp.
Of course, now all is revealed, and I know “wimp” doesn’t come into it.
If your cold hasn’t completely gone yet, I would assume your immune system must still be fighting it, and this is probably what’s causing the flare-up in symptoms. If you still have a raised temperature - even slightly - that could be contributing as well.
Colds or other respiratory infections (especially flu’) sometimes do trigger REAL relapses. But I think that’s usually 5-6 weeks afterwards, not instantaneous. So if the flare-up is whilst you still have the cold symptoms, or only very shortly afterwards, it’s probably not a genuine relapse - just pretending to be one.
Of course, by an unlucky coincidence, you might have had a cold and a relapse just at the same time. But my bet is the symptoms will ease off once you’ve shaken off the cold properly.
Tina
Thanks Tina. Have not had a cold as bad as this one since I was diagnosed so hope it is just because my body us fighting infection. Guess its a case of just waiting as seeing. Thanks for replying.
i felt the same after my friend died. she was very dear to me and cancer took her quickly.
i was visiting her in the local hospital, then christie’s (specialist cancer hospital), then the hospice.
i have felt lost and my symptoms have got much worse.
it’s not the same because my immune system isn’t involved but stress was a major factor in the onset of my ms.
carole x
Hi,
I have relapsing remitting MS and spotted this post when trying to find out information about how colds effect MS. I came down with a cold about a week ago and started to notice a slight tingling / numbness in my feet. This has now spread up my right leg and has made it harder to walk, my leg is now a dead weight! The cold has improved but the MS symptoms have got worse, so I was wondering if in your experience this often happens with a cold related flare up - the symptoms getting worse as the cold improves or if this could be a relapse? As background I have had problems with my leg before and am going through a bad patch with the MS - two relapses in the last six months.
Any help would be appreciated as it’s all very confusing and I worried about getting sick again for several weeks / months.
Kathy x
I guess it is the fact that your immune system is trying to fight the cold, then MS is attacking this immune system…
The lengh of time it takes to get better does depend on the type of MS you have.
I hope all gets better soon x
Someone might correct me but when you have a virus ms symptoms can flare up, when that happens they are called “sudo” symptoms. not sure on the spelling. My ms nurse told me about them, just another thing lovley ms has for us. It flares up because the immune system is under stress and you core body temp has changed. Thats my understanding of them, hope it helps.
darren
darren is spot on and the spelling is pseudo-relapse is you want to google it
B
Thanks for the advice - for the time being I’ll have faith that it is a psuedo relapse. It’s very confusing though as when googling pseudo relapses it seems to give examples of it occuring for only a few hours, for example after a hot bath but this has been going on a few days. However other information does talk about pseudo relapses with colds which perhaps last a bit longer. x