Question about Relapses
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 12:06 pm
I have a question about relapsing - don't know if what I experience is "normal" or not.
I was dxd in April 2003, and began Rebif in June. I am 40, female, and overweight.
Anyway, I have what I think are "relapses" - in April, just after my dx, I had a new "episode" in which my entire body went numb, with extreme pain in my hands and feet and partial paralysis in some of my thigh and abdomen muscles. This episode was treated with Decadron IV - 4 series of 3 days of 150mgs for the last three. At the end of this episode, my only lingering effect is that my hands never got better - they hurt always, always tingling, cramping often, and no tactile feeling in the skin (everything feels like I am touching shards of ground glass).
So...I have learned to live with this hand thing, and rely heavily on Dragon NatSpeak. My question, though, is that I periodically - sometimes weekly or more or less - experience pain in my arms and legs, like the ache you feel when you have the flu, and somedays I feel a return of the numbness in my body, but never all over like it was in April.
Are these pains and numbness spells relapses, or are the "normal" course work for MS? I have had no new "episodes", so am I in "remission"? Are these new "episodes" or what?
My doctor just keeps saying not to worry, but when I read that people are "relapsing" or having a new "episode", I guess I just need a definition (real life) of these terms.
Thanks for listening - sorry to be a "pain"!
Hugs
Auntie Jane
I was dxd in April 2003, and began Rebif in June. I am 40, female, and overweight.
Anyway, I have what I think are "relapses" - in April, just after my dx, I had a new "episode" in which my entire body went numb, with extreme pain in my hands and feet and partial paralysis in some of my thigh and abdomen muscles. This episode was treated with Decadron IV - 4 series of 3 days of 150mgs for the last three. At the end of this episode, my only lingering effect is that my hands never got better - they hurt always, always tingling, cramping often, and no tactile feeling in the skin (everything feels like I am touching shards of ground glass).
So...I have learned to live with this hand thing, and rely heavily on Dragon NatSpeak. My question, though, is that I periodically - sometimes weekly or more or less - experience pain in my arms and legs, like the ache you feel when you have the flu, and somedays I feel a return of the numbness in my body, but never all over like it was in April.
Are these pains and numbness spells relapses, or are the "normal" course work for MS? I have had no new "episodes", so am I in "remission"? Are these new "episodes" or what?
My doctor just keeps saying not to worry, but when I read that people are "relapsing" or having a new "episode", I guess I just need a definition (real life) of these terms.
Thanks for listening - sorry to be a "pain"!
Hugs
Auntie Jane