Symptoms and diagnosis of multiple sclerosis
Diagnosing multiple sclerosis is difficult because there are no lab tests to confirm the presence of the disease. In addition, people who have multiple sclerosis don’t show any specific symptoms of their illnesses. As a result, many people may experience problems associated with multiple sclerosis for years before they are officially diagnosed by a doctor.
What kinds of problems do people with MS have?
People who have multiple sclerosis may experience a combination of physical, emotional and cognitive problems. Common early signs of multiple sclerosis include numbness, blurred vision, difficulty balancing, tingling sensations or muscular weakness. More severe signs include sudden paralysis, difficulty speaking and poor coordination. Fatigue, muscle spasms, mood swings or irrational thinking can also set in for people with multiple sclerosis. While this may seem like a good collection of symptoms by which to diagnose the disorder, the truth is that most of these symptoms are more commonly associated with other types of health conditions.
How is MS diagnosed?
When trying to diagnose multiple sclerosis, doctors look for damaged nerves and other abnormalities in the central nervous system. Damage in more than one place is a very strong indication that a person has the disease. After finding damage to the central nervous system, doctors try to eliminate any other health conditions as the cause of that damage. Doctors must also try to determine a timeframe for when the damage to the nervous system occurred – damage to different areas that occurs within the same month is generally not caused by multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis can happen in anyone, but women are twice as likely to develop the disease. Most multiple sclerosis patients are diagnosed in people between the ages of 20 and 40, although the disorder can occur in people of all ages. Children rarely are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. When they are, girls are three times more likely than boys to be diagnosed. Women are more vulnerable to multiple sclerosis because the disorder begins with a malfunction of the body’s own immune system, and females are generally more vulnerable to developing autoimmune disorders.
Patient histories
Doctors ask their patients numerous questions when trying to diagnose multiple sclerosis. That’s because while a cause of the illness remains a mystery, researchers have identified several risk factors believed to contribute to the development of the disorder. These risk factors range from emotional problems such as stress to environmental conditions such as living in areas with less sunlight. Smoking, prolonged exposure to toxins and infections are believed to contribute to multiple sclerosis as well. The risk of developing multiple sclerosis also increases among people whose relatives have been diagnosed with the disease.
Detecting nervous system damage
As stated earlier, damage must find damage to the central nervous system in more than one place in order to accurately diagnose multiple sclerosis. Administering an MRI is one way to check for this kind of damage to the brain and spinal cord, although the detection of damaged nerves doesn’t necessarily conclude that a patient has multiple sclerosis. Doctors can also administer visual evoked potential tests, which measure the nervous system’s electrical responses to various types of stimulation. Measuring these responses can show slowing response times, which would indicate that damage to the central nervous system has occurred.
