I had never heard of the distemper theory until someone posted on another message board I frequent.

It was pretty uncanny -- the poster and his wife were dxed with MS at just about the same time. They each had different neurologists and the husband's doctor noted when taking his history that the couple had been exposed to an animal with distemper and told him about a link.

Distemper aside, I remember that the couple had been together since their teenage years so it doesn't seem unreasonable that they both encountered SOME external thing that was the same.

Within the next six months another new poster came to the board saying that his wife had been dxed not long after his own dx. He couldn't believe it. No mention of distemper from that couple but it's still sure curious in terms of a potential common external influence.