Post Trauma - MS trigger

Just reading Little Red’s post made me think about what someone mentioned to me the other day.

Reading some of the replies there seems to be a number of us who experienced some kind of trauma before the MS. So just thinking out loud, I thought I might ask the question and start it off.

In August 2011 I had a total thyroidactomy and right side parotidectomy, along time on the surgeons table I can tell you. April 2013 I started to show signs of what I now know where early indications of MS. It was suggested that while dormant the MS maybe triggered by some such traumatic event.

So, as I said, it’s just a thought and something to mull over.

Best wishes

Paul

Hi Paul

Although I was DX years ago, my problems started 3 months after my Dad died young, so I have often thought I wonder if that was the trigger for me.

Certainly an interesting thought.

Pam x

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I think my first symptoms started after I got pricked with the needle of an HIV + patient at work and ended up on antivirals and an unknown future in 1999. I had another possible relapse in 2005 after a bout of severe tonsilitis and lost 10kg in 2 weeks. We had an accident in 2007, car vs bus and since then I deteriorated and in 2012 they discovered my neck was in a mess and I needed surgery to replace a disc and a year later I was dx. Long history but the extreme fatigue, clumsiness and tingling limbs I just wrote off to hypochondria. And I was a nurse, but ms as an illness other people got, not me!

Cath x

My first MS symptoms were after picking up a serious stomach bug in holiday in Portugal, it caused me to haemorrhage. After several months and months and I wasn’t getting any better, I got an MRI of my stomach. This revealed a complex tumour on my ovary, but adhered to my bladder and bowel and my abdominal wall. They couldn’t operate straight away, they had to syringe the excess fluid reguarily and wait to get three surgeons together to do the surgery. My MS was getting worse as time was passing.

And so finally after the longest wait my MS had taken a complete hold of me by this time, I was walking with the most extreme difficulty, I had a radical hysterectomy, lost part of my bowel, was left with chronic pelvic pain due to adhesions.

And finally my MS is living along side a pelvis that doesn’t like movement, is in pain all the time, but I’ve always put off doing anything through the doctors, because neurologists and gynaecologists and cancer specialists don’t like working together lol.

my poor GP

Polly xxx

Hmmm- as I’ve mentioned, mine followed after my lymphoma.

will discuss with my neuro when I see him in a few weeks, also seeing the haematologist a day or two before that.

Won’t really change the fact that I seem to be lumbered with it, sadly.

As do we all Kev, it’s a bit like an extra kick in the … After you’ve already had a fight. Hugs to you my dear,and you all

Polly xxx

Although I’d had mild symptoms for years things didn’t get bad until I had gall bladder removed.

That doesn’t sound like much… but I had been told by a doctor in America (where I was living then) that there was nothing wrong with my gall bladder and the the pain (agony) was wind! They didn’t even do an ultra sound.

Back in UK and still putting up with the pain as ‘wind’ I got obsructional jaundice due to the gall bladder. Was very poorly.

By the time I actually had it removed I was told it was ‘chronically diseased but luckily no cancer’.

So yes I think your trauma theory is interesting.

(And shows how awful the American private healthcare system is!).

Pat xx

In the early nineties I left my husband and had a very traumatic divorce. I also turned my car over after swerving to miss another car. It around this time that I got my first MS symptoms, I have always felt that one or both of these events could have been a trigger.

Jan x

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Jan I reading this on kindle so missed the after swerving bit and wondered maybe makes easier to work on brakes or fit an exhaust. Hmmmm Don being stupid again. My symptoms started so long ago I can’t remember.

Don

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I think I have had this wretched illness since I was 14… Started with eye problems and and the electric shock thing from the neck down the back…it has a name but it escapes me at the moment. However, my symptoms progressed much more so in my late 30’s after a considerable amount of stress caused by my husband being very very ill.

I think you could well be correct Paul, I think maybe we have it or we don’t but I’m sure stress can be a trigger to really set it off big time!

Nina x

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I mentioned this suggested connection to me neuro today. He was gently dismissive. He made the point that a lot of the research into has been from the medico-legal point of view, for example where whiplash from a car crash has resulted in some damage to the upper spine, and subsequently MS has developed. However, these examples tend to be followed up by the driver of the car in front which has been run into, rather than the driver of the car behind who was at fault and probably also suffered whiplash. No direct connection has been established; as he said you could probably make a statistical case for people who have had in-growing toenails who went on to develop MS.

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I can’t think of anything really, no massive traumas or anything really

Sonia x

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