Pain
Pain is a common symptom in MS; appearing in 55% of patients at some point of their disease process, especially as time passes. It is strong and debilitating and has a profound effect in the quality of life and mental health of the sufferer. It usually appears after a lesion to the ascending or descending tracts that control the transmission of painful stimulus, such as the anterolateral system, but many other causes are also possible. Most frequent pains reported are headaches (40%), dysesthetic limb pain (19%), back pain (17%), and painful spasms (11%).
Acute pain is mainly due to optic neuritis, trigeminal neuralgia, Lhermitte's sign or dysesthesias. Subacute pain is usually secondary to the disease and can be a consequence of spending too much time in the same position, urinary retention, or infected skin ulcers. Chronic pain is common and harder to treat.
Read more about this topic: Multiple Sclerosis Signs And Symptoms
Famous quotes containing the word pain:
“Crude thoughts and fierce forces are my state. I do not know who I am. Nor what I was. I cannot hear a sound. Pain is near that will be like no pain felt before.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Ideas about life organize perception; names of emotions organize sensations; rules of syntax organize thought. But pain comes on its own.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.”
—Herb Caen (b. 1916)