Hello, MS has left my husband with a limp that he can, with effort, self manage. He’s no power and limited movement but still walks. However, as we’re new to this, when there’s a temperature drop his limp is a lot worse, there’s no flex in the leg. Yesterday we were out for the Evening and parked quote away from the venue along with his limp his left arm shook when we walked back. Is there anything we can do to self manage that in colder weather?
They say that getting too warm is bad for MS, it can trigger your symptoms, well I’m sort of the opposite, if I get too cold or even a bit of a shiver whilst being outside my legs go completely stiff.
My wife is constantly on to me to wear warmer clothes, but even if I wrap up with more clothing, once I get this little shiver I just more or less lock up !
It’s as if the MS has made my body’s thermostat hyper sensitive to cold.
A couple of nights ago I was talking to our neighbour on our drive, just a few paces away from our front door, there was a slight chill in the air, nothing major but I could feel my self having a very slight shiver, within seconds I couldn’t move off the spot, my legs had locked, I had to wait for my neighbour to go in before trying to walk, like a robot to the house, it was embarrassing so I pretended to be checking the car was locked until my neighbour had gone in.
Once inside and my core temp up come up a little bit things got a bit easier.
So for me theres two things that hit my MS, over doing things and the muscles easily fatigue and go very very stiff, which gives me the shuffle/robotic walk, and then theres the drop in core temperature which has the same effect.
Even if the heating in the house is turned down a bit or hasnt been turned on I can get very stiff and robotic.
i find that my body is no longer able to self-regulate my core temperature.
once i get too cold it takes hours to warm up.
when i get too hot it takes hours to cool down.
wear layers and a hat.
Jactac it’s exactly that. As you describe. The locking and stiffness, hes just left with one straight leg. He does also struggle in heat too. Warm baths leaving him feeling dizzy afterwards. CatWoman- He does, a snood too. I think last night it was maybe coming out of a warm restaurant into the bitter wind. Thank you both x
I just think its another one of those strange symptoms that some of us get with MS. We all have this sh*tty illness but I bet most of us have different symptoms and how it affects us. I’m sorry I cant give a good answer, I just try to stay warm (but not too warm).
I often lose a lot of mobility after a hot meal. It seems that MS makes us sensitive to minute fluctuations of body temperature. After all our body temperature is fairly constant at 36.5–37.5 C.
It really seems that way from what we’re both learning.
My ms certainly is worse during colder weather, left leg is stiffer and it’s usually right leg that’s worse. Although I found the very high temperatures this year hard to deal with, colder weather is worse. 20 to 25 is perfect, my MS pen pal calls it Wendy weather.
We might be adopting that name in your honour haha. Certainly seems any slight change really alters his mobility.
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Same here with mobility in the colder months. For me it sets in from Oct-Mar. Thermal wear is a good way to produce heat when out, or indoors, and provide a boost in a way. The mountaineer range are very effective.
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