Hello! :)

[Laurendiana]

Hi everyone!

My name is Lauren, I live in Canada. I am 21 years old and currently attending university; I am studying nutrition!

I have been poking around the site for a couple of weeks, but was too nervous to post anything. I've gotta say, so many of you wonderful people offer such invaluable advice!

So my story is quite short. I was diagnosed with RRMS on March 17th of this year. In January, I had experienced some eye pain in my right eye. The eye doctor chalked it up to "strain", but it progressed to vision loss within a week. Later that week, I had also experienced facial numbness on the right side. A couple of weeks later I was diagnosed with optic neuritis, after seeing an ophthalmologist.

My ophthalmologist had suspected MS from the start, so he immediately requested an appointment for an MRI and sent my file over to an MS specialist. I had my MRI on the 3rd of March, and saw my neurologist two weeks after. And now, here I am!

I look forward to getting to know you guys; your posts have been a real encouragement to me!

[dastardly]

Hi Laurendiana getting to know all the quirks and surprises that MS has to offer is in itself going to be a challenge, If you have had only one visit with your neurologist I guess some more tests will be scheduled, has he/she talked about any plan of attack (disease modifying drugs) or anything else to help you restore your vision, I myself get a lot of numbness once 1/2 my body went numb my entire Right hand side even 1/2 my lips and nose I thought I was having a stroke but I never had any eye problems (touch wood) good luck with your journey keep your family and friends close and lean on them when you need to, Ms doesn't just effect you it effect's your family and ask as many questions as you can on this forum and your doctors and read as much about whats happening to you as you can welcome Craig

[Laurendiana]

Hi Laurendiana getting to know all the quirks and surprises that MS has to offer is in itself going to be a challenge, If you have had only one visit with your neurologist I guess some more tests will be scheduled, has he/she talked about any plan of attack (disease modifying drugs) or anything else to help you restore your vision, I myself get a lot of numbness once 1/2 my body went numb my entire Right hand side even 1/2 my lips and nose I thought I was having a stroke but I never had any eye problems (touch wood) good luck with your journey keep your family and friends close and lean on them when you need to, Ms doesn't just effect you it effect's your family and ask as many questions as you can on this forum and your doctors and read as much about whats happening to you as you can welcome Craig

Hi Craig! Thank you for your response. My follow up is scheduled for September - he pretty much knew as soon as he saw me that this was it. I had already had a few separate attacks, including tingling. Other tests were run, but it seems that my brain lesions were very indicative of MS.

The optic neuritis cleared by itself. It was already in the final stages when they figured out what it was, and it was completely gone by mid February. The only thing they said they could have used were IV steroids, but advised against it since the ON had almost run its course. I really hope you never have it as well - was pretty freaky! I am really sorry to hear about all of your symptoms, have you found anything that works for treating them?

As for medication, I do have a lot of options to choose from. But I am actually currently leaning towards going into a clinical trial. Just waiting for the O.K. from the research nurse!

[SNOOPY]

Hello Laurendiana and welcome to MSWorld

It sounds like you were diagnosed quite quickly, it does happen like that sometimes. Glad to hear the Optic Neuritis cleared up, hopefully all will stay calm for you.

Take care!

[hunterd]

WELCOME TO MS WORLD LAUREN!! We are so very glad to have you here with us, but we wish you did not have to be here. As you have already seen, there are many many folks around that will share their experiences with you. We also feature a chat room that is open 24/7, there is a schedule chat every night at 8 PM Eastern. Here is a link to the schedule, http://www.msworld.org/community/cha...hat-room-info/
I look forward to seeing more of you around. Good luck!

[Laurendiana]

Hello Laurendiana and welcome to MSWorld

It sounds like you were diagnosed quite quickly, it does happen like that sometimes. Glad to hear the Optic Neuritis cleared up, hopefully all will stay calm for you.

Take care!

Hi Snoopy! Thank you for your kind response.

Be well!

[Laurendiana]

WELCOME TO MS WORLD LAUREN!! We are so very glad to have you here with us, but we wish you did not have to be here. As you have already seen, there are many many folks around that will share their experiences with you. We also feature a chat room that is open 24/7, there is a schedule chat every night at 8 PM Eastern. Here is a link to the schedule, http://www.msworld.org/community/cha...hat-room-info/
I look forward to seeing more of you around. Good luck!

Hi hunterd! Thank you for the warm welcome. And the information! I feel quite blessed to have received all of these kind responses - I look forward to getting to know everyone!

Be well.

[ClaudiaK]

Hello laurendiana,my Name is Claudia and I'm 48 y old. I was diagnosed in February of this year. Also, my first attack was to my left eye and diagnosed with optic neuritis. Glad I found you with similar experience. I did not get any steroid treatment like you. Is your vision back to 100%? My vision some tests gets worse but overall 80% better on good days. I'mean currently on Rebif.
All the best to you!

[Laurendiana]

Hello laurendiana,my Name is Claudia and I'm 48 y old. I was diagnosed in February of this year. Also, my first attack was to my left eye and diagnosed with optic neuritis. Glad I found you with similar experience. I did not get any steroid treatment like you. Is your vision back to 100%? My vision some tests gets worse but overall 80% better on good days. I'mean currently on Rebif.
All the best to you!

Hi Claudia! Thank you for sharing your experience with me. Actually, the vision in my right eye, my ophthalmologist said, is "mostly" good. I think there were only a few minor things in my field test that I had at my follow up with him (on March 16th). Overall, my vision is pretty much back to normal. I also have very minor defects with my color vision (really only the color blue - it looks a little duller in my right eye), but everything overall is probably at 95%.

I hope your vision problems clear up! My ophthalmologist did say that typically, after ON, your vision will go back to how it was prior to inflammation. He said sometimes some issues will persist, though they are normally quite minor. ON can take a very long time to completely heal - all we can do is wait it out.

Be well!

[Chirpy]

Hi Lauren,

I also had ON as the thing that got me diagnosed (October 2015) - I went half-blind in my left eye, so annoying, it got just past the centre of my vision, so not only was there "fogged up mirror" on the top half of that eye, but I couldn't judge distance anymore. I was put on a dose of steroids but it was pretty much on its way out again by the time that happened. It took probably 3 weeks to be back to normal. When I went to see my MRI it was pretty cool to be able to see the actual lesion than was blocking the vision - you could see it on... you guessed it.. half the optic nerve :-) Fascinating! I'd had an earlier period of double vision so my eye specialist was onto the unexplained partial blindness straight away - as he put it, two strikes you're off to the MRI :-) I asked my neurologist where the lesion that made me have double vision was, and he said double vision comes from a brain stem lesion... nothing to do with the optic nerve - also fascinating!

This whole MS thing is pretty interesting when its not making me worry about progression etc, I am learning lots about brains and nerves!

ps, I am also a uni student (too bad I'm not studying biology ;-) ), tough times! (the fatigue gets me, but now I know why!)

Good luck with your MS and your study!

[Laurendiana]

Hi Lauren,

I also had ON as the thing that got me diagnosed (October 2015) - I went half-blind in my left eye, so annoying, it got just past the centre of my vision, so not only was there "fogged up mirror" on the top half of that eye, but I couldn't judge distance anymore. I was put on a dose of steroids but it was pretty much on its way out again by the time that happened. It took probably 3 weeks to be back to normal. When I went to see my MRI it was pretty cool to be able to see the actual lesion than was blocking the vision - you could see it on... you guessed it.. half the optic nerve :-) Fascinating! I'd had an earlier period of double vision so my eye specialist was onto the unexplained partial blindness straight away - as he put it, two strikes you're off to the MRI :-) I asked my neurologist where the lesion that made me have double vision was, and he said double vision comes from a brain stem lesion... nothing to do with the optic nerve - also fascinating!

This whole MS thing is pretty interesting when its not making me worry about progression etc, I am learning lots about brains and nerves!

ps, I am also a uni student (too bad I'm not studying biology ;-) ), tough times! (the fatigue gets me, but now I know why!)

Good luck with your MS and your study!

Hi Chirpy! Thank you for your response. I know hey? I really wish I had paid more attention to the central nervous system unit in my physiology classes! As much as it really sucks to have MS, it really is interesting to learn about... Glad I know there are others who feel that way!

I feel ya with that fatigue thing! It is so tough to try and work through it. What are you studying?

Good luck to you too! Take care.