Sudden walking difficulties are an example of a paroxysmal MS symptom.
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Every day of living with multiple sclerosis (MS) is an eye-opener for me. It has been that way for many years — 32, to be precise.
My acceptance of disability came so long after my diagnosis with MS in 1986 that I sometimes wonder what ability — and not disability — really felt like. Quite honestly, I don’t know the difference, except on those rare occasions when I am seated comfortably outside, looking far into the landscape, and I vaguely remember walking.
Today, the difference between disability and ability can still seem murky, because disability can have its bad days, too. I know that disability is already challenging, but I now have to learn about disability sometimes being extra challenging.
I just didn’t expect to find disability, which is now my “normal,” to have challenges layered upon already existing challenges. I know how disability acts in my case — as I should, since it has been three decades. Disability is more a part of me than ability ever was.
If only things were consistent! But they are not. Just taking an extra step, for example, or an unintended walk, may interfere with my energy levels.
Paroxysmal Symptoms Confirm the Inconsistency of MS
I recently came across the term “paroxysmal symptoms,” which reaffirmed for me the fact that no formula in the world works the same way everyday with MS.
Paroxysmal symptoms present themselves briefly, for a few seconds or minutes, and are gone just as quickly. I have read that these tend to occur at the beginning stages of MS. For me, they did happen in the beginning, and they are happening again now.
So maybe they occur at all stages of MS?
Moments of Speechlessness Caused by MS
At the very beginning of my MS journey, I had brief, intermittent “waves,” as I called them, of disturbances in my speech. Later I found out that I had a lesion in my speech center.
At the time, I was 17 years old. These waves came and went throughout my days as an undergraduate student. When called on by the professor in class, these episodes were brief enough that I could sit there and somehow make the time go by until I could speak again.
This was all very frightening, because for those few seconds, it was as though I was speechless because I forgot how to talk. Obviously, demyelination was occurring, and therefore there was some kind of disconnect going on in my brain.
By Mona Sen
