Hi I'm very new here. I joined yesterday and this is my first post. Last Tuesday morning I woke up with double vision which was so wobbly I had to get myself and my kids ready for school with one eye permanently covered, no mean feat! This came on quite suddenly, although on reflection it was preceded by about 2-3 weeks of extreme stress in all areas of my life (work, home, kids, house renovations etc) The double vision was assessed by the Eye Hospital on the same day. Rewind almost exactly 2 years, I woke one day with a 'shadow' in my left eye around the upper eyelid that felt initially like it my be a loose eyelash. As the hours turned into days this show became blindness in my left eye and I went to the optician, referred to Eye Hospital and they diagnosed Optic Neuritis. This too came about after a few weeks of extreme stress - a new job, turning things up a gear in terms of my capacity - two very small children to look after and other stresses that I won't bore you with. Rewind 15 years I was on a flight to London and I began experiencing weird tingling sensations in my arms and legs that got progressively worse and within 12 hours became so paralyzing I was unable to walk. I was tested in hospital as an outpatient and no conclusion was made around what was wrong. Again this happened after a really stressful time in my life - loss of my Dad, relationship break up and losing my home. At the Eye hospital last week the Dr who examined me mentioned the Optic Neuritis and said that with these two episodes combined (I didn't mention the 3rd) we might be looking at 'the elephant in the room' as she called it: MS. She ordered an MRI which I am currently awaiting results for. I guess I've read enough about MS in the past few days (and 2 years ago) to know that it is a 'piece of string' in terms of symptoms, the path to diagnosis and the progression of the illness and symptoms...but I would be really interested to hear if anyone else has ever correlated their flares to periods of extreme stress? Up until this Double Vision episode (and lots of other weird symptoms that are in the pic n mix with it) I would have been open minded enough to accept that maybe my sympotms were caused by anxiety and possibly the Optic Neuritis just one of those anomalies that there isn't a known cause for (it did clear up in less than 2 weeks, but had all the hallmarks of Optic Neuritis) I'm also really interested to know if anyone has experienced a flare where the symptoms change in their severity during the flare - for example my double vision has moments where it seems to be improving and then it goes all giddy and wobbly again. Apologies for a long post (and possibly a bit of over sharing) I'm actually quite excited that I've been able to type all this - yesterday I couldn't get mind and fingers to connect enough to type a short e-mail! It's also the first time I've ever posted on any forum, on any topic, anywhere - ever! Best wishes to all you lovely people, Deb