This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Has anyone out there developed respiratory problems since their diagnosis? About 6 months after my first MS diagnosis at 46 (7 years ago), I developed bronchitis for the first time in my life. It has reoccurred 2 to 3 times a year, and lasted from 3 to 8 weeks each time. Eventually, I developed an ongoing asthma problem. I am allergic to dust mites, but I have been for most of my life and I didn’t have respiratory problems before.

Jan, are you sure you only developed the respiratory problems after the diagnosis? Did you by any chance have some sort of respiratory infection a little while before? Even just a bad cold? Think carefully about it, then you might like to look at various people's postings in the Regimens section.

Sarah

I was dealing with sinusititis for a few years. In late 2002. I had bronchitis at about the same time I was having problems with my leg. In Feb '03, I was dx'd with MS right around the time when the bronchitis was worse. It went away but returned in Sep '03. It re-emerged again in Feb and Sep of this year. I have not had any new excacerbations since being diagnosed but of course the existing symptoms were worse with the bronchitis episodes. I can trace back over 20 years to when I was 15 where I had bad bronchitis (it was more than just bronchitis) two or three times. The doctors could never explain it to my satisfaction.

Yes I believe its more than a coincidence.

No, I never had respiratory problems before then. I had chronic sinus headaches since I was a kid, which were due to the dust mite allergy. It never caused any respiratory problems, at least up to that point. The first time that I had bronchitis was 6 months after they found the demilination on my spinal cord.

Jan, the reason I asked is that many of the people, including myself, who my husband, a consultant clinical microbiologist, is treating for C Pn infection as a possible cause for MS, chronic fatigue, reactive arthritis and so on, can trace the onset of the disease back to an extremely bad cold a little while before the onset of the first symptoms. Personally, I experienced this before my disease turned progressive, but I can't in all honestly say if I had a respiratory infection before I first developed RRMS because it was quite a long while ago: I was scarcely out of college. Also it was so benign for so long that I didn't even realise I had it, (or I chose no to think about it which is quite easy when you only have a comparatively minor relapse every two or three years.) All this time, though, I developed a dreadful, hacking cough every winter, which carried on and on. A chest x-ray showed nothing untoward and I put it down to being slightly allergic to turpentine: I am an artist, so I tried to avoid using it as much as possible. Now, after one year and three months of treatment, apart from being vastly better otherwise, as you can see from my entry in the regimens section, I can use turpentine to my hearts content without coughing.

Sarah