I’ve just been diagnosed with MS following optic neuritis, nil other symptoms other than a year of intermittent patch of numbness over my stomach associated with stress. MRI showed multiple lesions and moderate plaque load.
I’ve started vitamin D, ALA and turmeric supplements.
It’s hit me hard out of the blue. I live healthily, don’t smoke, don’t drink and go gym couple times a week. No family history.
The neurologists didn’t seem quite worried and told me to keep healthy.
They’ve advised a spinal tap and offered me a treatment choice to think over (Briumvi, Ocrevus, Kesimpta).
I really want to keep living life as it is. If anyone has any advice including regarding treatment, I’d love to hear peoples’ thoughts
I am very sorry about your diagnosis. MS can turn up at anyone’s doorstep, I’m afraid, and while the kindest thing that could be said about my pre-dx lifestyle in comparison to yours was that I didn’t have any family history either, I dare say I’d have got it anyway. Or maybe not. No use worrying about that one way or the other - that horse has well and truly eft the barn. I do pay careful attention to lifestyle now, though, and do feel that it helps with managing MS.
I am really sorry that this life-changing diagnosis has come your way. It is always shocking news and a lot to get one’s head around.
Good luck with your treatment choice. The modern disease modifying treatments really can be game-changers, and I just wish more of them had been around when I was at your stage. It’s also very good for morale to decide on a treatment plan and get started on a treatment to keep you as well as possible for as long as possible - which is the only show in town with MS. That’s what I’m still doing, 25 years on from being where you are.
Those cards looks lovely, albeit out of date as they’re from 2014 and haven’t been updated. Briumvi was rated 4 for progression, but they presented their long term data in September which showed great numbers.
If the treatments they are offering you are all anti-CD20, there may be not much difference between them in terms of efficacy and safety.
I opted for Kesimpta because I like the self-injection thing. They deliver it to my house and (after the first one) I can do them myself, wherever I happen to be on that day. I travel a lot for work so this is really helpful. Having to go into hospital would have been time consuming and a nuisance - and got in the way with my “life as normal”.
Having said that, apparently some people like the chance to meet other people with MS at hospital and/or question nurses during visits.
It’s worth thinking a bit about the number of appointments you have to attend for treatment/monitoring, even if that’s not the main concern.
Incidentally, I’ve had loads of lesions from the start but very few symptoms, even a couple of years in. The MRI/symptom correlation seems not to be very precise.
