Pregnancy, menstrual cycles, menopause and MS are the subjects of the following excerpted post:
Are you peri-menopausal or post-menopausal? Has menopause seemed to
effect your MS? The question as to what extent menopause effects MS is
one which has not been thoroughly studied. Women may talk about MS
symptoms getting worse during menopause (Smith, 1992), but does
menopause effect the clinical course of the disease?
According to recent research, presented as an abstract at the
American Academy of Neurology annual meeting (2012) in New Orleans,
menopause does not appear to change the clinical course of multiple
sclerosis as measured by brain MRI scans and Expanded Disability Status
Scale (EDSS) (Bove, 2012). Data is derived from a study involving 128 pre-menopausal women living with MS (ages 38 to 46) and 78 menopausal women (ages 54 to 62) as reported in MedPageToday.
The two year change in EDSS among pre-menopausal woman was 0.139
points while the change was 0.122 points in menopausal women. Not a
significant difference. Changes in MRI scans were similar for both
groups of women. Comparison to men living with MS from the same age
groups was used in the study to eliminate the influence age might have
on disease course in the analysis.
Read this post in its entirety:
Menopause and Multiple Sclerosis: Feel Worse? Your MS May Not Actually Get Worse, A New Study Finds
Hot flashes = bad...hot flashes + MS = lock me a room with a bag of ice cause I'm not fit to be with other human beings for awhile. (at that moment it would be dangerous for a doctor to stand in front of me and say "but it isn't making your MS worse...." I understand it is an exacerbation....the flashes and the optic neuritis and the muscle spasms all go away fairly quickly...it just feels like forever!
ReplyDeleteBTW...don't think I've ever left this long a comment!