Menstrual Cycles
After living with MS for a few years I started to notice a pattern in when my good and bad days could be expected. A week before my period was due my symptoms would get worse and worse until day two of my period when they would miraculously improve!
It was incredible how different I felt, so I started to investigate. Apparently changes in hormones and body temperature during a woman’s cycle can cause dramatic fluctuations in symptoms. I was advised to try the pill or have a coil fitted, which has dramatically reduced these fluctuations. Another “women only” MS problem caused by demon hormones!
Sexual Dysfunction
This is where the women get their own back. Around 70% of men with MS experience erectile problems caused by MS-related nerve damage.
Sexual arousal, response and orgasm require messages to be sent between the brain and sexual organs via the spinal cord so if any damage has occurred along the way the result will be catastrophic for sexual function.
There are ways of treating erectile problems, like Viagra for example, but there are no ways of helping with ejaculation and this can have an impact on men with MS being able to father children naturally.
Women have sexual problems too, but mainly with loss of sensation and the inability to have an orgasm. While this can make the experience less pleasurable it doesn’t interfere with her ability to get pregnant and carry a healthy baby full term.
This is arguably the point of our existence, so messing with a man’s ability to perform in this way can be heartbreaking.
Conclusion
So, women get MS more often than men, but when men do get it they get it later and they get it far worse. I wonder if this is true though – do men just get “Man MS” like they get “Man Flu?”
Just kidding. I know women and men experience MS in much the same way. When it comes down to it, we have the same bodies and they malfunction in the same ways – except women are slaves to their hormones!
