Diagnosis

These last few months have been very exciting. I had a horrible migraine at the beginning of August causing me to be sent to the ER with a droopy face. My tongue also fell asleep and it was hard to talk for a week, until it woke up. After a whole lot of tests, including an extremely painful Lumbar Puncture (Spinal Tap), I was diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. MS is an auto immune disease which causes one’s own body to destroy the myelin sheath around the nerves in the body and to damage other parts in the Central Nervous System including the brain and spinal cord.

There is no cure. However, I can significantly slow down the progression of the disease, and keep myself out of a wheelchair with treatments. I now give myself an injection of Copaxone every day. I am not really scared of needles now, but a shot always feels like a shot.
Nothing can be done to bring back the vision I have lost or to heal the damage MS has done to my body already. The reason I lost my vision and the reason my sense of smell is diminished is due to the MS. MS explains the fatigue and generalized pain I always have, my sensitivity to noises, heat and cold, and the memory lapses I get from time to time. I refer to these memory lapses as getting “the stupids”. Another symptom I have is electrical shocks. It’s like being electrocuted from the inside out. This does not hurt much, but it is a strange feeling. I never could figure out what was wrong with me, since I have had symptoms of MS since I was 16. I am glad to finally know what can be done to help me.

Throughout the barrage of tests I was also diagnosed with complex migraines (we knew that one) and sleep apnea. The migraines are very hard to treat, since I don’t respond to the drug class of triptans (like Imitrex). My neurologist and I are trying many different remedies. Most of them don’t work, and I just have to get myself to sleep to get rid of the headache. The sleep apnea should be easier to take care of. I have been to two sleep studies, and I have been fitted with a mask. Soon I will sleep with a CPAP machine that will allow me to sleep through the night. According to the first study I did I was waking up every 90 seconds to breathe.