Meeting my MS Specialist soon

New diagnosis and before diagnosis
1

Good Morning.

I was diagnosed in June of having CIS (transverse myelitis),im meeting my ms specialist Oct 5. This is the first time i will have met this guy having been seen by and diagnosed by another doctor. I spent a week in hospital and had the usual treatments ie steroids,spinal tap and MRI scans brain and spine which found lesions in brain and spine. Im in the army so see my medical officer every week and as far as hes concerned its ms and im going to be discharged from the army (happy about that) full medical pension im coming up to 52 only 3 years to serve.

Now im still walking with difficulty and have started getting pains and tingling in my right arm plus i still have pretty much all the problems that got me the original diagnosis, and sorry here is the six million dollar question will my ms specialist now call it ms and prescribe me dmd and a nurse or sit on his hands and wait.

Sorry for the rambling but i know there are some very experienced people on here with years and years of suffering and i was hoping to tap into some of your experience.

Kind Regards Iain

2

Hi Iain

I don’t think anyone is going to have a definitive answer for you. It’s possible that the MS specialist will order more tests (another MRI maybe). And it’s possible that he’ll declare it to be MS without any further tests (at least two relapses and at least two lesions seen on MRI) because he’ll likely follow the McDonald Criteria: McDonald criteria | MS Trust

​But it will all hinge on exactly what results you had from the tests you’ve had, your current symptoms, the neurological examination on the day and also on the doctor concerned.

Certainly if MS is diagnosed, you should be offered DMDs. In fact some of the DMDs are supposed to be available to a person who has CIS diagnosed. So whatever the outcome of the appointment, you could ask about DMDs.

Sue