Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself. In this disease, the tissues wrapped around nerves are attacked and become scarred (sclerosed) in many areas. Different attacked nerves cause different symptoms. This is why people with MS do not always have the same symptoms. As the body tries to repair damaged nerves, symptoms may go away. More damage to the same nerves, or new damage to different nerves, can cause symptoms to come and go. Symptoms usually first occur between the ages of 20 and 40.
Nerve Symptoms
These are the symptoms that affect sensation or touch. A person may feel numbness, tingling, itching, pain or burning in their arms or legs. When touched, a person may notice they do not feel things as much as they had before. This may occur in an arm, hand, leg and foot on one side; or both legs or feet. A person may feel something similar to a shock when moving his head a certain way.
Eye Symptoms
When the eye nerves are attacked, vision may be double, blurred, dimmed or darkened. Partial or complete blindness along with pain when moving the eye is sometimes a symptom.
Sexual Symptoms
Both men and women may not reach orgasm as easily as they once had. Women may lose feeling in the vagina and men may become impotent.
Muscular Symptoms
People with MS may experience unusual weakness or fatigue, may be clumsier than they normally would be, may have trouble walking, may lose their balance or become unsteady, be stiff, or have tremors or shakes. A loss in one’s coordination is oftentimes a symptom.
Intestinal and Urinary Symptoms
If the nerves of the bladder or intestine are affected, a person may have trouble controlling when she has a bowel movement or when she urinates. Constipation can also occur.
Brain and Mood Symptoms
MS can affect a person’s mood, causing him to have mood swings or to go back and forth between highs and lows. When a person’s mood is low, he may become depressed or cry very easily. People with MS may have a difficult time controlling their feelings. For example, people with MS may laugh or cry at inappropriate times. Other symptoms might be that the person cannot think, remember or make decisions as well as he had before. Staying focused on tasks may also prove to be more difficult than in the past for him.
Dizziness
Other common MS symptoms include dizziness, lightheadedness or loss of balance. Other people may experience vertigo, a feeling that you, or things around you, are spinning around uncontrollably.
