First Years With Multiple Sclerosis

The first MS attack my wife remembers was her left arm going numb from her shoulder to her finger tips. During that time, she was going to paralegal school and had recently moved to the Dallas area. She was 20 yrs old at the time. She went to see the doctors and they felt she had carpal tunnel syndrome. They gave her a wrist support and sent her home, diagnosing her with a pinched nerve. For weeks she was numb, then the feeling started to come back. Everyone felt as if this was an isolated incident and not a big deal. Almost a year later, at Thanksgiving, my wife started to have fuzziness in her left eye. This was after a busy day and it came on without warning. She noticed the problem as she tried to drive home and couldn't see well when she was passing cars. She went to bed that night not knowing what the issue was, then woke up the next day blind in that eye.

She immediately went to see the eye doctor and he gave my wife the diagnosis of MS. He explained that he had only seen this issue with patients that had Multiple Sclerosis. My wife's biological mom had been in contact with her adoptive father at the time so he knew that she could have MS. At that time, the doctors were still teaching that MS was not hereditary and my wife was one of the first cases of a mother/daughter with MS. Her eye doctor gave her steroids for the blindness and she was able to regain her sight after a few weeks. My wife was completely blind for a full week this first time before the sight began to come back. About the time that she had regained her sight completely back, her right eye went blind.

This happened the day after Christmas, and seemed to coincide with her menstrual cycle. This time my wife was hospitalized and put through testing for MS. She had an MRI done and a spinal tap. Neither one of these came back positive for MS. The MRI showed no lesions but her parents felt like it was definitely MS. Her father chose at this point to not continue any testing because as a pharmacist, he felt like it was futile. He felt like it was a waste because it wasn't like they could cure or really even help with the drugs that were available then. The doctors started her on steroids and her eyesight began to come back just like it had before.

About that same time my wife's mother attended a Yanni concert. During the concert he spoke about how his daughter was about to give birth, and about how she had MS. My wife's mother approached him after the concert and he took her aside and told her about Dr Roy L Swank. My in-laws called Dr. Swank's office and was lucky enough to get an appointment within a month due to a cancellation and her age. Because she was only 21 at the time, Dr. Swank wanted to see her as quickly as possible. My wife moved back home and went to see Dr. Swank. Dr. Swank confirmed the MS diagnosis and had her start the Swank MS diet. My wife moved back home and began the diet immediately.

For nine months my wife slept and kept a strict diet according to Dr. Swank's book. Right after the blindness issues, my wife had tingling in her legs and problems walking. She also started to have epileptic seizures in her left arm. She had the seizures for about a month, and the doctors had her take seizure medication. The seizures stopped after that month and she has not had any since. The leg issues continued off and on for the first six months after starting the diet. My wife's main memories of that first year of MS were sleeping all the time and being stuck at the house. She remembers how strict the diet was and how worried she was about breaking the diet. She has commented many times about how she was worried about eating a french fry, or potato chip, because it might make her blind. Even when I met her a few years later, she was still strict with her diet and wouldn't cheat due to fear that it would hurt her and cause an MS attack.

After the nine months of sleeping, my wife slowly began to go back to work and continue with her schooling. She continued to have mild MS issues, including fatigue, tingling in her legs/feet, tingling in her arms/hands and headaches. About two years after starting the diet, she went blind for her third time. This time the eye issues started right after rock climbing and hiking all day. About a year later, my wife and I met. I know there are many, many things I am leaving out about those first few years, but maybe this will give a big picture view of my wife's experience. I will try to get into more detail in later posts.

Night Blindness With MS

After going blind 4 times with Multiple Sclerosis, it is no surprise to me that my wife's eyesight has some issues. She has one eye that is half the brightness and often has issues with reading signs and making out words at a distance. The other issue she has is seeing well at night. Her eyes don't seem to adjust very quickly and when headlights are coming at her, she has a hard time seeing after the car passes. It is worse when she doesn't feel good or is tired, and this last week she had both issues. I know it really concerns her during those few seconds when she has a hard time seeing, and she will almost always choose to not drive at night unless she just has to.

The other issue she was having this week was twitching in her eye. Her eye started twitching the other night and she finally just gave up and went to bed because it was annoying her so bad. Even though she hasn't gone blind in years, the effects of her losing and regaining her eyesight is still causing her grief. We are able to trace all the previous times she went blind to specific circumstances, and we have learned things that she can and can't do. We know that eye strain and stress on her body can cause issues, so we have to make hard choices sometimes and choose not to participate in certain things and make sure she rests. We are very thankful that her eyesight has always returned, and we will take all the precautions we have to so that she never has to worry about going blind again.