Cindy, yes, they can and the woman on the show actually just filled in some blanks for me. That part was interesting to me because although it's suspected that I've had MS for a long time, there was nothing serious that I couldn't just shrug off. I had always wondered -- actually, FELT, that it was possible for something like that to trigger the disease out of dormancy. I remember that when I first came here I posted this idea and I believe it was Nikki who said that one of the first things her doctor asked was if she'd experienced a physical or emotional trauma. Mine did not and seemed to shrug off the really shocking slam to my back that I had just a few years back. Turns out that the woman in question (Hope, she's now Hooknfoot ;) ) had symptoms for years but they were dismissed -- first in general, and then attributed to Lupus. Besides the crochet hook, she had an earlier attack, also when she was undxed, after an incident where she cut her finger badly on a knife.