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@UpsandDowns 

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UpsandDowns

Relapse Symptoms

Dear All, Hope you are all safe and remaining healthy in this lock down, I have a very strait forward question. Is there a period of time for a relapse to form or strike in other words, how long does it take for a relapse to occur? Three years later after having my first relapse, I started having some very mild pain on my right side behind my right ear right abdominal . This has got slowly and gradually increased together with the other symptoms and now I feel like relapse is not too far away. These symptoms were not picked in the MRI. Please share your knowledge and experience with me, because i could not find any article or info regarding the brewing period of a relapse. Thanks
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@Ralee
@Ralee
 

Now, I'm not sure how accurate I'm going to be but this is how it was explained to me. So essentially a new relapse is more damage to the CNS, which will take the form of Lesions/Scaring/Sclerosis etc on an MRI. When I asked my Neuro how long it takes for a lesion to form he said 'hours'. A relapse is classed as new or worsening symptoms that last for at least 24hours and 30 days from a previous relapse. You might already be having a relapse, contact you MS nurse if you have one to talk in through. I hope you feel better soon

@ruggermad
@ruggermad
 

@upsanddowns Hello - i'm no expert but I can give you some insight of what happened to me on my second relapse last year. It was my second ever "major" relapse where I actually developed some form of disability for a while. I say for a while as in both cases where I have had relapses to such magnitude, my limbs returned to almost normal (well 95%). Last year I went for a walk around the village, I have done the walk (approx 30 mins) daily for the last 5 years, with no problems. On this particular day, I didn't feel right, I started walking and I suddenly found that my gait was all over the shot. My legs didn't seem to want to move in union and I was shuffling about. At the end of the walk when I walk the final 10 minutes up a slight incline to my home, I might as well have been walking on a escalator the wrong way, I was getting nowhere and was feeling exhausted. I finally managed to get home and had to sit down to recover. My left leg was getting number and number. I sat for about 45 minutes before I needed to head upstairs to the toilet. It was at this point when my leg completely gave up the ghost and wouldn't lift up by itself. I had to pull my leg up to get it to move and climb each step lifting my left leg in the process. This had never happened before and it was really scary. Timescale wise this happened within a few hours of my leg starting to feel weird. To cut a long story short, this episode lasted for a total of approx 7 days with my leg slowly returning to "normal" (about 90%) and walking without having to lift the leg manually. When I phoned my MS nurse to say something was up I got the normal "it's not a relapse" "rest up for a while and see what happens". Typical dismissive response which I seem to get. I can't comment about the relapse showing up on MRI as I haven't had one for about 30 months. The only thing I can say is you are probably a good judge of something not being right and will know if something is up. I seem to get a fuzzy head feeling days before a relapse seems to strike and sensations like the MS hug tightening around my chest. Good luck and take it easy. P.S. - my first relapse happened suddenly overnight while I slept and I woke up with a numb arm, but thinking about it I did have very mild sensory symptoms for about three weeks prior, bit like an itchy arm.