If you’ve suffered through this disease for any amount of time, something strange will happen in your body and you’ll ask yourself this question. It’s normal. Eventually the answer stops making you crazy and you just deal with it. However, I believe that the longer you have the disease the more you know what is or isn’t the disease. Even better you know what symptom is making other problems of yours worse. Like today, I realized my shoulder tendonitis has been acting up. I blamed it on my MS spasticity to start with.  I understand now that as the pain in my shoulder started to get worse, it aggravated the spasticity in the surrounding area making me think it was just the MS. It’s the pain of one activates the symptoms of my MS.

It is easy to blame MS for everything that is wrong with you. Truthfully you’ll end up being right 85% of the time. I use to have wacky symptoms. I remember when I had L’Hermittes sign. L’Hermittes is an electric sensation that goes down or up the back to the limbs. Generally from bending the neck. I didn’t need to bend my neck, I’d just get the sensation. They were weird, that was MS. When I had muscle pain in my knees, I couldn’t keep my knee bent, I assumed it was MS as well. When I woke up in extreme pain and went to the ER, turns out I had a cyst behind my knee. Nothing to do with MS. I woke up having difficulty walking, more difficultly than I normally had. I thought for sure I was having a relapse. I had a urinary tract infection. After I was on the antibiotic for a day my symptoms went back to normal.

Always better to be safe than sorry. If you don’t know, ask your doctor. Don’t be afraid. In the beginning I know every feeling I had that was “off” I blamed MS. It takes time to learn your body and learn the disease. With so many disease modifying therapies out there hopefully you won’t even have to worry about this and stay healthy for a long time. It takes time to learn what is and what isn’t MS, until then ask. Over the 20 years I’ve been right about the symptoms and I’ve been wrong. Statically, I was usually right, so don’t wait and see, ask.