Welcome back, Ann N!

You've brought up two issues that are big questions for me too--the connection between stress and MS, and how to know if problems you're having are due to "just aging" or to MS.

For me there is a very clear problem with stress, especially now that I'm older and have had MS for over 40 years. I find it increasingly hard to tolerate stress, even types of stress that would have rolled off me years ago.

The aging question can be handy in a way. When a symptom or a pain comes along, I tend to chalk it up to aging and shrug and try to work around it or hope it will go away eventually. That way I don't have to worry about whether the MS is getting worse.

The chances are that it's getting worse. That's one thing it's known to do. But I've been lucky so far because it's been very slow about getting worse for me. It's still been a very rocky road but not nearly as rocky as some people have.

I see that I posted in this thread less than a year ago. I should update that information by mentioning that in December 2020 I went back onto Copaxone--this time in the generic form and with a shot only 3 times a week instead of daily. I don't know how helpful it will be for me at this point but I wanted to do what I could.

You have a lot of stress in your life, I'm sure. I hope that you can think of ways to cope so that you can get through the bad times. If you have MS for a while you almost have to find ways of getting around it so it won't act up.