I had that flare last winter that gave me drop foot...Doing PT for that, and wearing an AFO (ankle, foot, orthotic)

Well, now, last week I suddenly developed optic neuritis. In my right eye! (all my other ON's were in the left eye) So now my eye has been hurting when I move it going onto two weeks, and then today I started noticing vision weirdness. (wasnt doing that before)

Someone please tell the MS trolls in my head to stop screwing around with my nerves! I want them to stop picking on me every couple of months. Just leave me the heck alone for a few (30 or 40) years and stop causing me problems because it's annoying the heck out of me!

Those MS trolls have no conscious..

Awe.. so sorry you're going through this.

Cindy

Erin,

Sorry about the ON. There is a lot of it going round, it seems. I wonder if the changes in weather/season are responsible. Is it hot or abnormally cold where you are?

Be well,
ANN

We skipped over spring and went straight into summer. (february and march, were I think the warmest on record. 90 deg temps in March!)

Weird weather here. It was in the 90s last week, but today it was in the low 60s.

I'm one of those people who believes in the "seasonal MS" theory. I think it's temperature related, or barometric pressure related...or it has something to do with the jet stream. I dont know, but it feels like the weather influences the MS. Kind of like an allergy sometimes.

I've been playing around with my computers tonight. Seeing how the "accessibility" settings work. Figured out how to turn on the screen readers on the iMac, and I can set the screen to have white text on a black background. Easier to read than black letters on a white screen. I also figured out how to turn on the screen reader on my iPad. (that was cool!)

Kind of thinking about getting a program that's voice activated for my iMac and also reads the screen. Programs like that are kind of expensive so I'm playing with the built in things on the computer first.

Getting a lot of movies watched on my other computer. (watching things streamed online. Easier to tolerate watching on a monitor rather than watching my flat screen that's above my desk) My Mac Mini is turning out to be a great little entertainment center. I've been buying movies and tv shows on iTunes, or when I get dvd's I make sure that ones that have the digital downloads with them so that I can transfer the movies wirelessly to the Mini thru iTunes. (my Mac Mini doesnt have a dvd drive)

Discovered that British tv has some great stuff! Current favorite is the BBC "Sherlock". It's Sherlock Holmes set in 2011 London. Also fell in love with the "Downton Abbey" series.

If I have to have optic neuritis and am pretty much trapped at home most of the time, at least I can have fun watching British tv shows online, or listening to audiobooks.

My e-ink Kindle is coming in handy right now. It's easier to see than the iPad and it's text-to-speech function sounds better than the iPad does. So, reading is still something I can do. I would go bleeping nuts if I couldnt read.

Erin I thought of you tonight as I was reading an article about something Google is working on. It's a visual google device. You wear it like glasses and can access navigation as you are walking or video chat with someone while you are going down the street and show them the sights. Sounds kind of dangerous to me but I know you always like the cool tech things.

Is it the glasses that people wear, and it's internet enabled? They're not ready for commercial use yet from what I saw on the news.

I saw that. I dont think I'd be able to wear those. I get claustrophobic from weird things when I have optic neuritis. (weird, I know!) I tried wearing my sunglasses today (magnetic clip ons) and had to take them off because the sunglasses triggered my claustrophobia. Right now I'm really tempted to take off my prescription glasses because it feels like it's setting off the claustrophobia (that's never happened before)

I dont think they'll be practical for several reasons, but the biggest reason would be that people already have problems walking and talking/texting/breathing/thinking as it is now. There will be more people tripping down escalators and walking into traffic than there are now if people start using those.

Ok, now this is getting more scary than annoying. (still annoying tho)

I'm starting to have more vision weirdness. No blind spots yet, but my eye is numb, it hurts, and colors are starting to look different. It's my right eye, which I used to think of as my good eye. Now I'm not so sure I have a good eye anymore. One's a bad eye, and a slightly worse bad eye I guess. (guessing the right is the slightly worse bad eye now)

I gave up driving again yesterday. So, I only got to drive again for about a month after my last flare.

Trying to decide if I should call the neuro/and or eye doctor on monday and beg for IVSM or if I should just wait it out. When I had steroids over Xmas, I really really did not like the side effects from the 'roids. I hadnt had that impressive of a reaction to them before, but over Xmas I was freaked by the whole flare. Not sure I want to go thru all the side effects again. (I was taking oral pred over Xmas. This time, because of the optic neuritis, I'd be doing IVSM. Not sure if IVSM would make me as nuts as the oral pred did)