Received MS diagnosis today

New diagnosis and before diagnosis
1

I got my first syntoms in July with pain in my left leg and weakness in the right leg/arm. I had a MRI which showed a big lesion on my spinal cord C4 - C5 - C6 and C7. As they only found lesion there, and the fact that I am Brazilian and I have lived there for most part of my life (I am currentlhy 25 and I moved to the UK last year for my post-graduate studies), made the doctors to also suspect parasits that attack the central neurological system. As they could not find any parasitis in my blood, they give me pulso therapy and as I was feeling better I could go home.

Only a week home I started to feel weak again. I initially thought it could be normal and tried to rest more than normal and wait for my body to heal. But I started also feeling pain in my right hand after a few days (new syntonm) so a week ago I decided to look for help again. They gave me another MRI which showed that the lesion in my spinal cord actually increased and now I also have lesions in my brain. Because of that, they were able to complete the diagnosis and conclude that it is MRI and they classified me with a 'highly active’ relapsing MS. I am receiving the second pulso therapy now and they want me to start with the disease modifying therapies as soon as possible - they suggested Cladribine (Mavenclad).

Anyway, I am very worried because they said I had two crisis in like two-three months. I am worried that I may have one of the “bad” MS. Someone else had something similar and managed to get good results with this treatment?

2

on the positive side, you have had very thorough treatment.

i cannot comment on cladribine because it is quite new.

however the fact that they want to hit it hard is reassuring.

all varieties of ms are bad so don’t go worrying about which one they think you may have.

the great majority of people are diagnosed with RRMS.

put your trust in your specialist.

try not to worry because that leads to stress.

stress only makes symptoms worse.

if you find it hard to relax then use deep breathing techniques.

breathe in for a count of 4, hold the breath for a count of 6, breathe out for a count of 8.

when exhaling do it slowly and blow it out.

i did a mindfulness meditation course which was called breathworks mindfulness meditation.

it really has helped me.

3

Hello Marina

As Carole says, all types of MS are bad. I’m so sorry that you’ve had this happen to you so young, but you will be taking a good, effective disease modifying drug (DMD) and have a excellent chance of beating relapses off with that big stick on your side.

I think an MS diagnosis is horrible, and takes time to get your head round. There’s a fair amount of ‘why me’ and ‘its not fair’ to get through before you reach the stage of swearing at it and determining that you will work hard on having the best life possible despite the MS.

Doing some research on MS always pays off, use the About MS tag at the top of this page, or the MS Trust for reliable information. For more on Cladribine see MS Decisions aid | MS Trust

Best of luck.

Sue