Tuesday 23 March 2010

Annual MS review

I went to our local neurological specialist centre today for my annual review. It's timely as I've had a marked deterioration over the last few weeks and been unable to drive and walking as well as balance is affected. Thankfully, there has been a slight improvement over the last few days so I'm hoping that I'll fully recover soon. My first question was about the diagnosis - whether he still thought it was primary progressive MS since the recent episode has been a sort of 'relapse', which I didn't think happened in PPMS. He gave the same answer to me as I've given to others, namely, that disease categories are man made for convenience and the diseases themselves don't always oblige by falling tidily into a nice academic category. Secondly, he said that relapses or similar did happen in PPMS. He wants me to have another MRI scan in about ten weeks time. I can't have it sooner as I've been on steroids which can affect the results of the scan. I've to see him again after that. I found the last MRI scan OK. I was warned about the claustrophobia risks, etc as you're inside a compact vibrating tube, but, I could have fallen asleep if it hadn't been for the noisy vibrations.     He told me that symptoms could take 8 - 12 weeks to resolve, but, it was a good sign that some of the feeling was returning already. My son, being home just now, took me in and actually came into the consultation with me. After that? What do you think?! We went to the West End of Glasgow and had lunch. Male rule no. 1: every event should be marked by eating! (girls send greeting cards - boys eat!).

3 comments:

  1. ...and I get to drive the big fancy automatic car all to myself while he can't drive.....Paul, MS isn't so bad after all???!!!!!!!!!

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  2. OK, I'll swap you the MS for the car?!

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  3. I had an MRI last week, and I could have fallen asleep. They asked me what kind of music I wanted so I said classical, which was wonderful, it kept my mind off things.

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