Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms

What Are Some of the Signs and Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis (MS)?

1. Most people experience their first symptoms of MS between the ages of 20 and 40; the initial symptom of MS is often blurred or double vision, red-green color distortion, or even blindness in one eye.
2. Most MS patients experience muscle weakness in their extremities and difficulty with coordination and balance. These symptoms may be severe enough to impair walking or even standing. In the worst cases, MS can produce partial or complete paralysis.
3. Most people with MS also exhibit paresthesias, transitory abnormal sensory feelings such as numbness, prickling, or "pins and needles" sensations.
4. Some may also experience pain.
5. Speech impediments, tremors, and dizziness are other frequent complaints.
6. Occasionally, people with MS have hearing loss.
7. Approximately half of all people with MS experience cognitive impairments such as difficulties with concentration, attention, memory, and poor judgment, but such symptoms are usually mild and are frequently overlooked.
8. Depression is another common feature of MS.

SOURCE: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. NINDS Multiple Sclerosis Information Page.