Technically an “everything points to MS but I am not diagnosed” update.
I always had it in the back of my mind I would get a girl illness, like being the face of male breast cancer. But then again I was certain I would know French one day – I guess someone interrupted my timeline…
It has been 14 months now, with attacks happening in months zero, four and fourteen. I’d like to think the delay of the last one was due to my strong adherence to dietary regimes (no saturated fat, which means no pastries, pizza, toasties, beef/lamb/pork, dairy, and lots of things that are simply yum), and adding Vitamin D and Flaxseed Oil into my world. I’ve thrown in a bunch of other vitamins and supplements, including NMN, K2, CoEnzyme Q10 and so on, just cause. And I’m eating more oily fish that ever, getting into mackerel, and salmon in the air fryer.
It’s weird being un-diagnosed because a portion of life would be better if you could act on it. So I literally want this week’s MRI scan to say I have MS (well I need it happen twice, to be “multiple”.)
Ongoing symptoms:
- Hot and cold flushes/flashes. Perhaps like menopause, perhaps like flu
- Fatigue, sometimes extreme
- Tingling in fingers and toes
- Falling over when very drunk (new, not normal)
During an “attack”, all of the above except:
- Quite heavy dizzy/vertigo
- Fatigue can be extreme, sometimes shut down like sleep paralysis
It would seem that – from personal observation – there are a few different angles to MS…
Ongoing symptoms – from damage during “attacks”. They are reasonably steady but flare up according to stress and over-exertion. They are a little bit manageable. But they get worse with every attack, which is the progressive side that is most common.
Attacks – and my only reason for writing this down… Death, as far as I can tell, is not a body failing functionally to continue, but deciding the odds are overwhelming and quitting. MS Attacks, in my limited experience, is an overload of depleted function (perhaps only 98% to 96%) that makes the body shut down to some degree, to assess WTF is happening.
The French origin of “repair” means to “retreat”.
Stress – my first two attacks were absolutely stress-related, a Xmas gathering in a crowded space, people I barely know, with me tasked with things (I’m claustrophobic and have social anxiety), and the day before moving house.
This week, hard to tell, perhaps a clusterfuck. I am still removing boxes of things from my ex-girlfriend’s place and I – for various reasons – am very stressed to be in her company. I should’ve just paid someone $1K to get it done.
I also just booked a 2 month overseas trip – my biggest adventure in decades.
And I just moved house. And I decided to retire. And my teen daughter is pregnant (again). And my Dad died within the last year. And other shit.
So, without a definite trigger, I am not too surprised.
But going forward, if I stick to my system, and have zero things in life bothering me, I should be OK 🙂