Hi Midori, that's actually not a simple question in my case.

Probably my first symptom was an area of numbness, maybe 1.5" in diameter, around my upper lip/cheek/nose on the right side. It was diagnosed as a mild neuritis, it went away after a week or two, and it never occurred to me that it was a symptom of something else.

A few months later I had what was diagnosed as mild trigeminal neuralgia. Again, it only lasted several days, and neither I nor my doctor connected the two, though he said he'd refer me to a neurologist if I wanted, or if it persisted.

When I went back to the doctor two or three years later, my concerning symptoms were extreme fatigue and "slow-motion brain". The earlier neuritis and TN never crossed my mind as being related.

In retrospect, I had balance issues, fatigue, muscle spasms years earlier. Were they symptoms of MS? Or just stuff that's common to most people? I'll never know.

I was diagnosed maybe four years after the neuritis, give or take.