Hi,

I am a 47 yr old woman. I've been having the odd symptoms all of my life. Being a busy person, I ignored a lot. A big "symptom" was at the 32 I lost the use of my right leg..it just stopped working for a couple of weeks. We had no insurance, I went to the urgi, but they did no scans. They thought it was anxiety and sent me on my way. I did get it going again though. A disability center loaned me a walker and somehow I got thru. I always have had times of weird vision problems and eye pains that glasses wouldn't help and opthamologists couldn't fix. Sometimes they would rx prednisone drops, sometimes not. I finally stopped looking for answers. Occasionally my closet would hide a bag of depends adult diapers.

3 years ago I had a major complex surgery and all hell broke loose. The tingles, the shakes, the burns. My face would go numb. The pain up and down my body. I couldn't handle the heat, I wouldn't even leave my air conditioned home in the summers. I started taking cool showers. I thought it was menopause. People attribute all bad stuff to menopause.

I took a few falls. Suddenly my daily beach walks had become treacherous. Stairs were a jungle. Handles became my best friends. And then I'd be fine for a few weeks. Finally my gp did the "follow my fingers" test, and then puzzled a bunch of neuro tests. And a neuro consult. 2 clear MRI's. Puzzling labs with inflammatory markers extremely high.

Optic Neuritis. Wow. Scary crap. Almost completely blind in one eye. Now they've got my attention.

I just started a 5 day IV prednisone dose.

How can it be MS with clear MRI's though? The doc's say they are pretty sure. (oh the lumbar puncture was positive?) I go to a clinic in Boston.