Re: 21 year old male worried about MS
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:58 pm
It is not that rare, I am 25 years old and male. I was diagnosed last year. I had my first symptom at age 19. But like everyone is saying it could be anything.
lots of epidemiological info here http://www.who.int/mental_health/neurol ... MS_WEB.pdf
including: "Globally, the interquartile range for age of onset of MS symptoms is between 25.3 and 31.8 years with an average age of onset of 29.2 years (Figure 2.1). Regionally, the average age of onset is lowest in the Eastern Mediterranean (26.9) followed by similar average age of onset in Europe (29.2), Africa (29.3), the Americas
(29.4), and South-East Asia (29.5) and highest in Western Pacific (33.3) (Figure 2.2)"
more here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3707353/
eg "The MS prevalence ratio of women to men has increased markedly during the last decades (2.3–3.5:1), which indicates a true increase in MS among women but not men [Ahlgren et al. 2011; Compston and Coles, 2002; Orton et al. 2010; Wallin et al. 2012]. This rapid increase probably reflects unidentified changes in the environment or nutrition. Interestingly, the predominance in women varies with latitude [Kampman et al. 2013; Trojano et al. 2012]. The effect of sex on clinical features of MS is not as clear as the effect on MS prevalence; however, there is evidence that women generally have an earlier onset of disease, they have a slightly lower prevalence of primary progressive disease course and show in general less progression of disability than men [Bergamaschi, 2007]."