your time and advice needed - CIS

The reason why I am posting all this is because I need some advice / help / further understanding of CIS/MS…

I am currently working in Cambodia at the moment and have another 8 months to go. I am in hospital in Thailand at the moment being treated with CIS. I am trying to understand my risk of staying out here to complete my work or coming back to the UK. My current travel insurance wont pay for the follow up MRI scans I may need or if I have a relapse and are most likely going to book me a ticket home, once my body hopefully recovers. I will not be able to afford any health costs myself or to fly home at short notice if needed. However I am trying to find a new insurance company that may cover me for the rest of my time out here.

Any advice would be great, this is all very new, and I am very much in limbo trying to decide what is best for my health, and if it is really necessary for me to go back to the UK, on a CIS diagnosis.

Deatials of my condition below:-

I am 27 year old female and have been recently diagnosed with CIS -

I have lost sensory feeling, with pins and needles, and stiffening of joints in my lower body, numbness in pelvic area, and my right hand has lost some moter function and nerve function, with the arm also lossing sensory feeling. They have found multipule lesions on my spine, none confimed on my brain, as brain MRI was unclear, no loss of optic nerve function, and minimal loss of motor function. I have the electric shock thing also down my spine when I bend my neck. I am still awaiting the lumber puncture results to tell me if I am at high risk or low risk of developing MS.

I also had an event about 1 year ago, where my legs and feet were numb and I found it difficult to move, however this was much less servere than it is now, it passed in 1 week, so I put it down to stress without seeing the doctor.

Please, any advice is greatly needed.

Hi, I’m sorry that I can’t give any sound advise, you know your body and if it’s not working and you could get better help here then I think I would have to put myself first. Someone will come along who knows about this sort of dilemma. I wish you all the best.

Hello, and welcome to the site

How scary, all that happening so far from home!

Really sorry but, given the incident a year ago, it doesn’t sound like CIS to (unqualified) me. The definition of CIS is that it is a one off event - you’ve had two. What does that mean? Well, it means that it’s likely that it’s going to happen again at some point (regardless of the LP results). The problem is that there is no way of knowing when that might be - it could be this year, it could be in ten years.

The upshot of that is that it would be very very unwise to stay in Cambodia without insurance. So, if you can’t get new insurance, I think you should come home.

With any luck, you will be able to go back again some time in the future. MS is not the end of the world - it is still possible to do all sorts of amazing things. It’s a lot easier once you’ve come to terms with it and have got on top of living with it though!

Make sure you get copies of all your medical stuff (MRI, LP results, records if possible) so you can give copies to your UK neurologist whenever you get home.

I hope things start to improve very soon! Good luck.

Karen x