This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

I'm sorry to bring this subject to this site but I have questions that I need some help with. Long story short, I've dated a woman for 6 years and three years ago she told me she had MS while we were in the middle of having some relationship problems. Since that day I'm having some trouble understanding why she would tell me this at that time. She has no answer for me when I ask her. I have spoken with a friend of mine that she does not know who does have MS. When I explained what my girlfriend was doing for her treatment (pills) my friend gave me a puzzled look and said that she was taking shots and had never heard of my girlfriend's treatment.

Since that day I have asked my girlfriend how she was doing and she said she no longer takes pills and was taking shots of HGH for a month as a new treatment. I have read several articles on MS and tried to learn some of the symptoms. The only thing my girlfriend has is an occasional cramp in her hand that I have to help her open her hand. I don't want to sound cold but I'm concerned that she may be saying she has MS as a means to keep me in the relationship by guilt and sympathy.

She wants to get married. By doing that I would have access to her medical records but by then it'll be too late. I want to ask her to prove it to me by providing a copy of her medical report but if she has MS I'll feel like a first class jerk. I know, the bottom line is trust but I just don't know about this part of her because other things have begun to surface regarding her financial status that she has been untruthful about.

Basically she's default on several credit cards and credit accounts that she has tried to hide from me, but that's a whole other story. She also claims she was in the military and that was not true. Can anyone give me any advice on how I can try to nail her down with either detailed questions about treatment, symptons, etc. Any help would be appreciated and again I'm sorry for taking space on your forum with this question. Thank you.

In the current medical era it is generally accepted that all MS'ers are given a brain and upper spine MRI to confirm the lesions that are indicative of MS in almost all patients. It's almost always part of the steps towards diagnosis. At least this is so in the US. If your girlfriend lives in the US and was diagnosed in the last 10 or so years then she would have had one. She would more than likely have or has had a relationship with a neurology clinic even if she chose not to go on standard treatment especially since a neurology clinic would advise her on the standard treatments available and their advantages, disadvantages and side effects. Even if she chose not to use standard treatment she would probably have knowledge of the drugs (Copaxone, Rebif, Betaserone, Avonex, Tsybri, IV steroids).

I am no relationship counselor but I would run away from this relationship and build one with someone with whom you can base it on trust.

Good luck!

_________________
Marcia

rockypopo,

Run away now and enjoy your life with someone else.

gwa

Hi Rocky,
I've read your post a few times and all I can hear is alarm bells ringing all over the place. It sounds to me as if, at the very least, you should play it very cool for a while and not jump into anything until you are very, very sure.
I hate to advise anyone to be devious in a relationship, but perhaps you could pick up some words from this website and drop them into conversation to see what the reaction is, or ask her what the MRI was like, things like that.
From your description she sounds like a fantasist – she's talking about marriage, but to be honest you don't sound particularly enamoured – I'd tread very carefully if I were you,

_________________
Dom

Like Dom, I heard several alarm bells ringing all through your post. Ultimately it boils down to whether you love and have trust and confidence in this person. Only you can answer that. And quite frankly by the tone and content of your post i think you already have.

MS is often difficult to diagnose and symptoms are so variable from person to person. Do you think she told you she had ms at a difficult time in your relationship to keep you there? If so did it work? Would you have stayed in any event? Really you shouldn't have to be playing detective in this way - it's a rocky foundation to build a relationship on.
muu

it sounds to me like this person is just not honest, and it doesn't matter a shred whether she has ms or not.

about 11 or so years ago i was briefly engaged to a serious con artist. it took some extreme transgressions of trust, and some pointed remarks from friends, for it to sink in that i was looking at true colours, not a fixable deviation from the initial picture.

your description of your girlfriend is hitting most of the basic targets. in my case, my ending the relationship triggered some reality stories from people who had initially seemed to vouch for him, or at least not to correct my default trust setting. these revelations threw everything i had ever heard from his mouth into question.

what you deserve in life, is not to be lied to or manipulated.

my experience prompts me to ask if this person has a strong relationship with her family?

Hi there

I don't have a hang of a lot more to add - just that if you have concerns that she is the kind of person who would use a serious medical condition to emotionally blackmail you, then you should run away as fast as you can - whether she actually has ms or not is irrelevent to how you feel about her. A good, healthy and productive relationship is based on honesty and trust, as well as love - and at least the honesty and trust are missing here.
I don't think it is really important that you pin her down on the ms issue - you don't need to prove her a liar in order to walk away, nor do you want to be compelled to stay with her out of guilt if she does have it. But if you have to 'casually' call her on it - through out some of the common medical terms - lesions or plaques, areas of the brain such as peri-ventricular, brain stem etc, sub-cortical, white matter as opposed to grey matter, ask about her MRI (as previously suggested) - how many lesions she had (then ask again a few days later - she might not remember what she said before!), T1 & T2 lesions, interferon treatment, iv steroids etc.

Everyone else has given you great advice - listen to your instinct...

Good luck

_________________
Al

Also,

Be careful and do not get her knocked up. She sounds like the type that might use such trickery to keep her man.

gwa

I don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been said. Some areas of what you wrote do concern me but I think the bigger question is not whether she has MS, but whether you should be with someone who you have so little trust in.

MS thing aside it is clear that she lied to you. I was engaged to a man who lied to me about financial debts and it never got better. I would advise leaving the relationship or seriously considering your options at the least. Even if she did have MS, that is not reason enough to stay with a liar.

Thank you everyone for your input. I truly appreciate it. I'm going to get to the bottom of this one way or another. If I have to take her to doctor and get her to sign a medical release then that's what I'll do.

By the way, she has never had an MRI. Again, thanks everyone.

if you find out she doesn't have ms, what will that mean going forward?

equally important: if she DOES have MS, what will that mean???

the two of you apparently don't have the trust necessary to enter a healthy marriage.

period.

I fail to see what good could possibly come from such actions. If some doctor proclaims that she doesn't really have MS then she could just say that the first doctor misdiagnosed her and then you'll still be back at where you started.

NHE

i agree, nhe.

''By the way, she has never had an MRI''

Can you get a dx of MS without ever having had an MRi - the first thing my doc sent me for was an Mri.