Hi, I’m just looking for some help and advice. For the last year and a half my husband has been suffering from unexplained chronic pain in his lower back, stomach and groin which also travels down his legs. This pain can come and go and he has been prescribed various pills, antibiotic s and pain killers with no success. He also often says he has blurred and double vision and on a few times had a loss of vision in one eye. Doctors cannot seem to come up with a diognosis and just throw painkillers at him so I am not sure how to go about mentioning MS and if they could look into it. Or I could just be clutching at straws to explain and fix the pain he is in. His mother has MS but I was under the impression that it was not hereditary? Does anything I’ve said seem to point towards MS? Thank you for reading and appreciate any responses 
You are quite right, it is not hereditary, but having someone in the family with MS does increase very slightly one’s risk of getting it.
In your shoes, I would really want to get to the bottom of the vision problems. Even if your husband is no longer getting the double vision/blurring/loss of vision, I would expect the GP to want to refer to an opthalmologist to have a good look for clues as to what might have been going on. Of course, maybe you have done all that and are none the wiser.
The unexplained pain going on for as long as it has done, and (maybe?) not responding reliably or well to conventional pain relief must be horrible for him and you. Sounds like time for a proper sit down with the GP to review the situation. If your husband is an, ‘Oh, I’m very well thank you, Doctor,’ type of bloke, would he be amenable to letting you go to the consultation too? When the spouse rocks up to a consultation, the Doc knows you mean business.
GPs tend not to like self-dx, and mentioning MS is likely to narrow the discussion down into a routine ‘providing reassurance’ session (probably for excellent reasons!) Your husband could just say that he wants to understand what is behind the chronic pain and vision disturbance, and excluding possible neurological cause by getting a neurologist’s opinion might take you a step closer.
Good luck with it all.
Alison
Of course having MS in the family is going to make you more conscious of it as a possibility but the increased risk for first degree relatives is only very slightly above that for the general population.
I agree with Alison that an appointment to an opthalmologist is probably a good starting point. Lots of things can cause vision problems and eyes should never be neglected. Even with a previous and now resolved problem tell tale signs can still sometimes be picked up by a good eye Dr. But do see a proper opthalmologist and not just an optometrist.
As for the back pain, it oculd be any number of things but for what it is worth MS related leg problems tend to be ascending rather than descending. That is the pain or sensory symptoms usually travel upwards rather than downwards. So a more normal pattern is for numbness or pins and needles to creep up the legs to the groin rather than shoot down the legs. It does sound more as if it could be a muscular skeletal problem such as a disc problem in his lower back but of course I am not a Dr so don’t take my word for it!
Has he been sent off for a CT scan of his lower back? That would usually be the best way to check out if it is a lumbar spine problem.
Hope he gets to the bottom of it soon,
B