Hi Jim! How nice of you to be concerned/interested about your ex wife.

Many years (apprx 1990 - diagnosis came in 2000) before any other symptoms, 2 weird things happened that I now believe were my very first symptoms. One day, my head fell over. No pain, I simply could not hold it up. And for a short period of time I had a numb spot on my thigh. Felt like my pant leg was wet and someone was fanning it.

From 1994 -1997 I had 2 bouts of Optic Neuritis and Uhthoff's Sign was off and on. During the ON everything from line of sight down was...gone. When reading I only saw the top half of letters. Uhthoff's causes colors to dim, usually when the body gets overheated (even slightly). When outside on a sunny day it was as if a dark cloud had blocked the sun.

In '00 the real attack occurred and most of it remains to this day. Loss of bowel and bladder control (mostly gone, whew), extreme fatigue that made me feel like I was walking underwater; when I wasn't dragging my right leg it was swinging out.

Good luck to your ex wife! Hope she has something treatable/curable and not MS.