Does my husband have MS? Please help!

[ebrownkirkland]

So, my husband's next appointment with the neurologist is this coming Friday, Jan. 20, and I realize we will learn more there, but I want to get your take on his results. As it is now, I'm worried (I went through this same thing about five years ago for myself).

About a month ago, my husband saw the neurologist because, for the past two years, he has been having migraines (they had increased to one a week when I made the appointment for him) accompanied by blindness in one eye (sometimes he has pain with the blindness, sometimes not). Thinking they were typical ocular migraines he went to the neurologist. They of course sent him for an MRI and the MRI detected three lesions, one being one centimeter. This prompted them to schedule a lumbar puncture, which he undertook about a week and a half ago. We now have all the results back from the LP and he was found to have high protein levels in his CSF (normal is 15-49 and his was 69) as well as one o-band. From what I've read, in order to get a positive diagnosis of MS, you need to have at least 2 or more o-bands in your CSF, so I'm thinking that he won't automatically be diagnosed with MS come Friday (although I could be wrong). But he is worried and so am I about what the neurologist will say. We also want to find something definitive out by Friday and would like him to start on medication as soon as possible in order to stop full-blown MS from developing (we've read a lot about Clinically Isolated Syndrome). Now, looking back on things, everything for him is a symptom (over the past six months he has also experienced some cognitive issues--forgetting things frequently; he has also experienced fatigue). The cognitive stuff could be due to stress, though, as could the fatigue (he doesn't get enough sleep and has a very demanding job).

Anyway, what do you think? It said on the lab report that a definitive diagnosis of MS could not be made based on the one o-band alone--that clinical symptoms and other lab findings would all have to be taken into account. It also mentioned the possibility of a B-cell tumor (which, as I've read, is lymphoma). Obviously we don't want cancer, nor do we want MS, but we would be grateful for an answer.

[jimmylegs]

hi and welcome

i am pretty useless i am afraid, when it comes to suggesting whether something is likely to be ms or not. and i know zero about b-cell tumors. figuring these things out is most often just a crap process you have to go thru with the docs.

i *COMPLETELY* get how you feel, been there. likely most of us here, whether patients or caregivers, have been through that frustrating wait. for the moment, i can reassure you that i've never once seen anything to suggest that starting a treatment NOW vs next week or next month, makes any difference over the long term. that said i pay next to no attention to the standard treatments, so there may be someone else here with more information on that front.

personally, i stick with 'here's what you can take control of, to help make sure you are as little like a typical ms patient (or any kind of chronic disease patient for that matter) as possible!!!' if it were me, i'd be thinking long term, using the long term stress and 2 yrs of migraines as the starting point, and going from there.

if the docs thought this week was make or break, they'd be upping the ante i would think. so, deep breaths, you got this

[ebrownkirkland]

Thanks, jimmylegs. Really appreciate the insight.

[jimmylegs]

np