my relapses seem to last an awfully long time - Multiple Sclerosis Message Board

Dawn36 · 02-08-2005, 11:09 AM

I've always thought my exacerbations, or relapses, seemed to last an awfully long time, and would be interested to know, since I'm currently experiencing one, how long others' exacerbations typically last.

crystal22 · 02-08-2005, 11:48 AM

I haven't had MS for very long, about a year, and I've only had 2 exacerbations so far, the first one was weakness in my left leg and arm and it lasted about 2 and a half months. My 2nd exacerbation started in the beginning of december (numbness from my waist down) and it still hasn't gone away, although it has started to in the last week or so. So thats about 2.5 months as well. I think the length of relapses is like everything else with this disease, different for everyone.

gaulty · 02-08-2005, 04:19 PM

yeah crystal it is different my first year my arm and leg went ,arm was bad this lasted a year ,im on interferon now had a hit in december on the arm again it lasted 3 days .nice one 1 bad turn dont mean they will all be focus on getting better and train as much as you can for the next hey it my be years ,good luck hope this helps,

Arraicha · 02-08-2005, 06:26 PM

My shortest was 3 months and my longest was 7 months (and would have been longer if not for a Cortisone injection)

If your relapses seem to last forever, ask your doctor about IV injections to calm the symptoms. It's not a good idea to inject often, but in bad cases, it can help a lot.

Good luck!

Dawn36 · 02-09-2005, 12:24 PM

Thanks, all of you, for your input. I had the idea that others had much shorter relapse times, based i guess on what a doc told me at some point, but i see from your responses that's not true.

This is the 3rd time i had syumedrol IV, which never seeemd to make any difference at all until this time. the difference this time was that i only let 5 days lapse between onset of symptoms and the start of the 3 day IV, whereas in the past, i probably let a month or so go by before starting it since my symptoms were still relatively mild and i have a natural bias against medication if i can at all avoid it. (I am on Copaxone tho.)

this time with the IV, i saw an immediate tho subtle improvement in symptoms at end of 1st day, even more pronounced improvement at end of 2nd day. However, sensory symptoms in various parts of body (different from day to day) and a bit of perceived weakness in leg still persist. The exacerbation started in mid-December.

The good news is, the brain MRI i just had done shows NO CHANGE since my last MRI which was a good 8 or so years ago, tho it did show a current flareup in spine, which i guess is what's causing my current symptoms.

There was one new troubling symptom i had last weekend, tho, which i will talk to my doctor about on Friday. Has anyone else experienced this? I was carrying a lightweight chair i had bought from my car to front door. I put the chair down and reached for the door handle when i felt what i can only describe as a prolonged, slow motion muscle spasm coming on that seemed to be exerting tremendous downward force on my right hand, and a lesser, upward force on my right leg. It wasn't painful, but it forced my hand downward in a kind of clawlike position, and it gradually eased up and disappeared after about a minute. Very frightening, and i wonder what would have happened if i was driving at the time, as i felt like i just instictively fought against it. I had not overly exerted myself carrying the chair, or stretched in any unusual ways.