At What Age Was Your First MS Symptom
 

When was your first deffinate symptom of MS?

This Poll should include all limbolanders too.

I was DX at 36...ist deffinate SX at 24.

Well, they carried me out of work and over to the emergency room once when I was 22 and couldn't walk all of a sudden.

Then after 30 years of being completely comfortable with the fact that my body (and brain) don't work quite the same as everyone else's, they gave me a surprise dx of MS and HNPP when I was 52.

I'm not absolutely sure when my first definite symptom was.

My knee started giving out when I was in my late teens. Eventually I had to quit baseball, running, etc. because I'd fall (with no pain, till I hit the ground).

In retrospect, I probably had an attack, lasting about 3 months, just prior to the falling problem. I guess I was 18 yrs old then.

Lots of bowel troubles, spasms, face numbness, etc. after that . . .

It wasn't till a BIG (unquestionable) attack when I was 31, that "Probable MS" was laid on the table.

Cherie

I find it difficult to know when I had my first definite MS symptom vs normal child hood stuff.

Even before my teens....friends would always complain I was walking into them, I can't remember a time when my balance was good. I started falling often like alot of kids but it just never improved.

I always had trouble riding a bike...my legs would get tired, felt like I didn't have any strength and I could not keep up with my friends yet I was solid muscle. I had a hard time laying out in the sun, I would have to come in and take a nap after just a short time and that only got worse as I headed into my mid-teens.

I finally decided being tan was not as important as hanging out with friends:rolleyes:

I was dx'd at 25 years old.

IF I have MS (not diagnosed), the first definite symptom would have been the painful shocks beneath my ears at age 42, which I think was a small episode of bilateral trigeminal neuralgia.

However, when I was 25, two to four months after the birth of my first child--prime time for "relapses," I think--I had a huge dizzy spell which MAY have been part of all this (maybe not).

After my second child, numbness in my hip. Never saw a doctor about anything til age 42.

Nancy T.

Oscillopsia at 24

Pardon my stupidity, but what is that? :confused:

My Mother told me, after my DX, that she remembers incidents in my childhood that may have been related to MS. I guess I was having too much fun to notice. Just thought it was all part of growing up.:rolleyes:

Hi Sally,

I chose 10-20, but I remember some vague symptoms as a young child, as early as maybe 7 or 8 years old. I don't know that it means I had it back then, but I had weird things happen with my health for as long as I remember, even though I was "the picture of health" in many ways.

Sally,

Cricket will no doubt explain it better, but oscillopsia is "bouncy vision," where during movement such as walking, things are blurry due to your eyes not having the proper reflex to stay stable during head movement.

(Think of oscillo- as in oscillating, -op as in optic.)

Nancy

From what I have written In my diary and talking with my oldest brother, I have probably had MS since my late teens. Probably about 20 years now. I have never been a lazy person, but In my late teens after I joined the Army I would get tired very easy. It was tough passing some of the physical fitness test. I always had to work extra hard to do a lot of things that come to most people very easy. I always wondered why some things was harder for me to do. When I was diagnossed with MS It all made sense.

Thanks Nancy, I knew it was something to do with the eyes, but just had never heard that word before.

That must be awful, Cricket, so sorry.

This thread is so interesting to me. I think that most of us had signs of MS, in early childhood. It must have been that protector gene, keeping the bad gene from from taking over. The body is an amazing thing, isn't it?

oldie but goodie
 

i am always the 'little old lady' here i guess!!

the only one checking off 50+.

i remember the exact day and time i felt my first symptoms in my feet - at age 57 on a Sat at the market. you know the rest....MRI and LP made it easy.

I am 64 now and progressing too fast. Starting Tysabri next month!

always said if what happened to me in 1981 would have happened in the last 5-7 years, they'd have pegged it as MS immediately. But then I remembered something from 1978... and could be even earlier... so definitely 10 to 20 range.

I had a series of severe migraines when I was 11 (got them weekly for a couple of months, vomiting, visual stuff, the whole bit - agony!). Was never the same after, and started experiencing bladder, bowel and balance and fatigue issues. Had visual symptoms after glandular fever too, when I was 18.

It's funny, I have spoken to friends at MS physio class - and every one of them can trace stuff back to when they were kids (10-20).

I had severe heat intolerance all my life, and fatigue problems from about the age of 8 or so. I also had regular bouts of double vision.

Sometimes I could slalom flawlessly and others I'd lose complete control--same with the piano--some times it could whiz through everything and other days I couldn't play chopsticks.

After bicycling, sometimes I couldn't even stand up and would collapse.

If I have MS (not diagnosed) - the first symptom had been oscillopsia and dizziness (I was 24) - never-ending tinnitus, tingling/burning pain, L´hermite sign, muscle weaknes etc. came up a little bit later ..

SallyC, in my case "oscillopsia" started as a slight "oscillating /shivering /rippeling" in the peripheral parts of the vision field first - and as it was gradually spreading into the center - now - after 10 years - the "motion" is present in my whole vision field - so my vision now is constantly moving/sliding/wawing or whatever and it never stops - even when I myself am not moving - that means - when I am for example trying to read or when looking at my monitor - it feels like as if I was looking through "rippeling/waving" hot air - or - at a waving "water-surface" image, but a little bit slower .. no blurred vision, no nystagmus, just all I see is constatntly moving/waving/sliding slightly back and forth .. sorry, my English may not be good enough to find the right words for "proper medical explanation" :)
a.
p.s. anyway - my docs keep telling me this has nothing to do with MS, so I do not know :)

I guess mine was in my teens, now thinking back on it all. My knee kept giving out. I always thought I had injured it playing sports :confused:

My mother has come up with a list of strange occurances in my childhood.