Is It Unusual……….. Or Something To Be Ignored?

According to the Health Central website:  “Damage to the sensory nerves between the brain and one or both eyes can lead to severe eye pain in people with MS. This pain, known as optic neuritis, may get better or worse over the course of the progression of MS, and it is often of the first symptoms people with MS experience. People who experience any pain in their eyes should have this problem checked out immediately by a health care provider.”

I have severe pain in one of my eyes.  Sometimes it is so sharp that it almost takes my breath away.  So far, my neurologist has decided that this must be related to something else because it is not an MS symptom.  Really?!

On the Health Central website there is a section about MS and many of the problems patients with MS deal with as well as some of the problems that are considered not so common with MS.  I would love to have this made into a booklet and passed out to all neurologists.  Out of the five neurologists that I have been to, all but one dismissed anything that was “out of the norm”.  Unfortunately, he was one of the ones that I have been to that moved too far away to continue seeing.

From everything I have read, as well as talking with so many that have MS, I really can’t see how anything can be considered normal.  Most of us that suffer with MS have a variety of symptoms that come and go.  I would not really consider any part of this disease normal!

One of the biggest problems I have had with doctors seems to fall into the category of them not having enough experience to realize that everything anyone has is not necessarily just like the book states it should be.  For instance:  What would you list as the symptoms of a cold?  For some, it is sneezing, sniffling and coughing.  For others, it is a low grade fever, chills and coughing.  Because all cold sufferers do not fit into the same category symptom-wise, there are many different types of medicine.  One brand of medicine I have looked at when I had a cold had many different symptom relievers.  One loosened mucus, one relieved chest congestion, one was for fever, one for cough and so on. If you had several of these symptoms I guess you would have had to use several bottles for each problem.

I guess, like a lot of you, I get really disgusted when my doctor ignores things I tell him because he feels they are not related to his field of expertise.  I feel like many that most of the problems I have each day are related to my battle with MS.  I realize the difference in having a cold, breaking my leg (which can be related to MS) and stubbing my toe (ditto) and problems with MS.  Sometimes, though, they all seem to run together.

Since my eyes are getting progressively worse, I have decided to go visit my opthamologist.  He is a nice guy and I trust his judgment.  He listens to me and tries to decide what he feels will be the best treatment option.  The only problem I have with him is his taste in sports……….he picks lousy teams!