I wonder if anyone can help me. I was diagnosed with MS 5 years ago. I went under 2 MRI and lumbar punch. I have not had any symptoms until a week ago. I went to make an eye test and they told me to go Outpatients because I described my right eye as blurred and saw black floater for 2 days. I rang my doctor who advised to go A&E. The doctor at the A&E could not find anything wrong in my eye and referred me to the eye clinic the next day. I went to the eye clinic and he did lots of tests and asked about my health. I explained I was diagnosed with MS 5 years ago. He asked when did I have my last MRI and I said 5 years ago on diagnosis. I expalined that my MS nurse retired 2 months after I was diagnosed and I have not even seen an MS nurse. The Eye Clinic but me straight forward for an MRI in five weeks time and said I had Optic Nerious. They left the appointment open and said I didn’t need to see them again.I am quite scared and keep thinking I have a brain tumour of something.
Hi Angela. I’m new to this forum stuff but just diagnosed with ms. My first symptom was 8 years ago and it was optic neuritis. Was told then that I may develop ms but had no other symptom. 8 years on and I have new lesions on my MRI and some tingling in my face. My neurologist had to diagnose me and now I’m waiting to start treatment. My eyesight is still not good in that eye but I manage. Try not to worry and hopefully the eye improves.
You’ve done really well to have no relapses for 5 years, but it must come as a bit of a shock to the system to find out that your MS is behaving like a little time bomb and has now taken the form of optic neuritis.
Often high dose steroid treatment can bring ON to an earlier end than without treatment. Do you have a neurologist? Or is there now an MS nurse covering your area? You could find out by phoning your local hospitals neurology department and asking the neurology nursing staff or the neurologists secretary.
Your GP might be comfortable prescribing high dose steroids, or you might get some help from an MS nurse. Or you may prefer not to take steroids (it’s not essential, they only aim to shorten a relapse, not cure it).
You might also get a referral to a neurologist from your GP if you don’t currently have one. It might be that seeing a neurologist might be useful to you, certainly to get some neurological input on the results from the MRI.
I was diagnosed in April but had optic neuritis when I was 31. I’m 49 now and it seems I’ve had ms for nearly 20 years! I too have minimal symptoms and very infrequent relapses; it was an episode of double vision in January that led to my diagnosis. My optic neuritis cleared up after a few weeks and there is NO WAY they would have sent you away if they suspected a brain tumour plus the symptoms are very different. Trust me, I’m a nurse!!