New member to the MS Society and Forum

Welcome and introductions
1

Good afternoon to everyone. I am new to the forum so I’ll briefly introduce myself.

My name is Emma and I’m a 45 year old single mother of one 14 year old daughter. I was sadly diagnosed with MS back in February 2016, but according to the medical professionals they believe I’ve had it since 2008 which explains some recurring medical issues I actually started suffering from in 2008 but no one could find a cause for my ongoing/recurrent UTI’s! I was even referred to a consultant urological surgeon based at the University Hospitals Birmingham better known as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which believe it or not I actually worked at for over 26 years as a nurse for the first 5 years and then as a qualified medical secretary as well as progressing further to become a Team Leader and Office Manager….now this you won’t believe to all medical secretaries, office assistants and support med sec for the Urology Department as well as continuing my Med Sec role. This was before I even knew I had MS.

When I was diagnosed back in 2016 and the belief from the Neurological specialists that I’d had it since 2008, had sadly gone unnoticed, undiagnosed and untreated meaning that sadly I have Secondary Progressive MS.

I really do have so much more I could go into but I’ll leave it there for now and elaborate further.

I would love to have responses and feedback to my post with other people’s diagnosis and prognosis. I look forward to chatting more.

Take care

Emma xxx

1 Like
2

Hi Emma from a 71 y old male living near Glasgow. Diagnosed 18-19 years ago with RRMS ( but the growing view seems to be that the classification into PPMS, RRMS, SPMS is misleading. As a Professor Gavin Giovanonni says: MS is MS. It’s worth looking him up).

still walking but with increasing difficulty, and sometimes suffer the dreaded ‘fatigue’ especially in warm weather. Fortunately, warm/ hot weather is a bit of a rarity in Scotland.

( in The time since diagnosis I’ve got married, travelled around a bit and most recently- supporting my wife as she goes through Chemo which, so far hasn’t caused her too many problems).

3

Hi Emma,

Thanks for sharing your story :orange_heart: That must’ve been so frustrating having symptoms for years without knowing what was going on. I can totally relate I was only diagnosed with RRMS recently (May 2025 after losing my left eye sight) and it’s crazy how much it changes things.

It’s amazing you’ve achieved so much with your career on top of everything else, you’re super strong! I’d love to hear more about how you manage day-to-day with MS. :orange_heart:

Looking forward to chatting more :slightly_smiling_face:

— Sophie