Libby's Tips for Reducing MS Anxiety
MS is unique in its pathology; it comes and goes when it wants to — it haunts people.
If you have been diagnosed with MS, or if you love someone who has been diagnosed, then you know exactly what I mean. This disease enjoys lurking in the shadows, whispering your name in the dark, reminding you never to forget it is there.
Depression and anxiety disorders are common in people who have MS. It may be due to the brain damage we receive from our MS lesions, but I have a strong feeling it is mostly caused by the behavior of MS and our inability to prevent, predict or heal the damages it likes to inflict.
How It Began for Me
When I was diagnosed in 2007, I knew nothing about MS. The symptoms I was experiencing seemed like I had a pinched nerve in my neck or something to that effect. It had been only after months of progression I decided to see a doctor.
My symptoms had been annoying, but suddenly began progressing very quickly. What had been holding steady as some tingling in my hands and feet, and only when I tilted my head downward, turned into a full-time neuropathy overnight.
I was terrified. I had already seen a doctor, but he was not a neurologist and did not give me any indication of what he believed was the cause of my problems. He did give me a worried look I had not seen in a doctor’s eyes since my progressed bout of pneumonia when I was five-years-old.
I knew that look and it did not indicate something as minor as a pinched nerve. That look indicated something more, something unknown to me. Naturally, I went home and googled my symptoms. Turns out, there are a lot of scary diseases that have similar symptoms to MS.
That was the day my anxiety really began. I was beginning to understand something was really wrong. It was settling in that whatever was going on with my body was going to be permanent and that neurological diseases, still being in their beginning stages of medical understanding, meant there were no happy answers coming for me.
Falling Into the Depths
My diagnosis came when I met with a neurologist who had me come into his office a few weeks after our first meeting to get my lumbar puncture, also called a spinal tap. I am sure you are all very familiar with the procedure; it is a terrible experience pretty much across the board.
The doctor botched the whole procedure. He tried administering pain killers into the puncture area but they weren’t taking. Finally, he just went forward with the procedure.
You would think the neuropathy would have prevented my body from feeling the pain, but you would be wrong. He inserted the catheter into my spine and nothing came out, so he needed to place a second catheter into my spine; after all the pain and screaming from the first puncture, he went again. Fortunately, he was successful the second time.
The light inside of me went dark that day — I was wheeled out of that room a different person. My husband was not in the room when it happened, and when he saw me in the waiting room he looked puzzled and scared.
