Hi, I don’t know if this is a stupid question but I do feel like I should know the answer considering I was diagnosed with SPMS nearly ten years ago! On the 10th October I came down with a nasty stomach bug that wiped me out for about a week. Since then I keep getting episodes of vomiting and diarrhoea, interspersed with a few days when I feel OK again. I’m getting really tired and have lost over half a stone simply because I have no appetite and am wary of eating anything that’s going to set everything off again (although I can’t pin it to any particular food).
I’m going to the GP tomorrow to see if she can help. My question is whether or not MS makes it harder to recover from something like this? I know our immune systems are busy attacking us but does that mean they’re too busy to bother sorting out bugs and bacteria?
The sooner you get your GP to start tests to see if you have any of the ‘nasty’ bugs that go around the better. Anyone who is having diarrhoea and sickness for more than a week should be alarmed. The fact that you have MS only means it might take you a bit longer to recover but is not likely to be the cause. We all tend to blame our MS first for anything that is abnormal.
Hope you get the medical help you need soon - and can get back to enjoying your food. Xmas is coming!!
Mrs J - this is what she needs to find out. Food poisoning is also ‘a bug’ and can be very serious. Make sure you take pro-biotics to keep your ‘good guys’ working.
Most hospitals have restrictions on visitors because of the spread of the likes of vomiting viruses.
I agree with spacejacket, see your GP soon. A stomach bug (food poisoning or a virus) shouldn’t hang around for more than a week.
And as for whether our immune systems are too feeble to attack bugs because they’re busy kicking hell out of our myelin, I doubt it. Our white blood cells, which are responsible for attacking invaders into our bodies and mistakenly attack our own cells, i.e. In the case of auto-immunity, come in a load of different types. So while one kind of WBC might be attacking one type of enemy (or what is perceived as such), it doesn’t necessarily follow that there’s no army of other white blood cells ready to attack a new invader. Or at least, this is my unscientific view of how it works.
I am of course ready to be put straight by someone who really knows the science!!
Thank you so much for all your replies! I went to the GP this morning and he’s asked for a stool sample (deep joy!) to see if they can find out what’s causing it so hopefully that might provide some answers. I definitely want to be fully recovered before Christmas and want to be able to take my low dose Baclofen again so I can sleep properly at night, it doesn’t like an empty stomach!