age related question

[meg321]

This has othered me a lot but i never ask about it. Since I am now almost 65 in May, that is quite old for MS.  However, i do realize that if it is MS then I have had for a long time but with no real obvious symptoms that made me get serious about it.  Going back I have had a lot of these symptoms but not until the fatigue brought me to my knees, literally, did I do something about it.  

I have had oher problems to deal with in my life also, which took me a long time to bring me to a point where I could even recognize what a common cold felt like.  I am an alcolholic and drug addict and started recovery when I was 30 yrs old.  That took a good deal of time for me to get to some kind normalcy in my life....

I dont know why I mention that but somehow it may have haf something to do with taking so much time to recognize I had other health problems.  I blamed most things in my life on the alcohol and drugs.  Not sure how to say this but after my recovery, i just dealt with most things that came up just thinking they were part of life and not really too serious.

Maybe only another alkie could understand this because it sounds a bit nuts..or maybe not...but there it is.

My question is has anyone else been this old when being dx'd with MS  ( or whatever it is) ??

hugs, meg

[Quixotic1]

My early symptoms were severe weakness in my right leg - specifically the hip flexors, R leg spasticity and urinary incontinence with severe urgency.  Shortly after that I had severe weakness of my right arm and hand.

No tremors, tingling, pain headaches.

Quix

[ragga]

What specific symtoms did you notice? Were they the standard in the list tremors ,urgency to urinate ,headaches, pain random?

[young at heart]

MEG,

I CAN REMEMBER HAVING SYMPTOMS OF MS AS A YOUNG TEENAGER AND IGNORED THEM AS BEING ACTIVE,SPORTS,SCHOOL AND WORKING.

I HAD MONO TWICE AT 15 AND AT 19. I HAD SYMPTOMS IN MY 20'S AND 30'S.BUT CHALKED THAT UP TO RASING CHILDREN AND WORKING.

DIAGNOSED AT 33,DISREGARDED THE DX,JUST HAD BACK SURGERY.REDIAGNOSED AT 40.

MS CAN HIT AT ANY AGE.

T-LYNN

[saveone]

Quix  I believe my point was the same.  I just didn't articulate it clearly.  That MS should not be ruled out because of age even though doctors are hesitant to step outside the box.  Many ppl don't seek medical advice when symptoms first appear for many reasons.  I was one of them.  It appears the most common reason is we don't recognize what is going on, mainly because the symptoms, come and go and we blame it on something else...as I did.

And you are right 60-75 is considered elderly under the guidelines of developmental psychology.  Also in that age bracket stokes and lesions are more common. Therefore the most common ailment would be the first you would look at.  Yet after that is ruled out it should be the neurologist duty to seek alternative reasons and then begin the process of ruling them out, including MS.  They should not throw the baby out with the bathwater simply because the patients symptoms or onset of symptoms does not fit the "classic profile".

If I had not been severely anemic (even though I did not know it at the time) I would not have gone to a doctor.  I went because I thought I was having cardiac problems.  Those symptoms were related to the anemia and have improved as my HGB and ferritin levels have improved.  It could have taken another 10 years before I was forced to see a doctor because of MS symptoms or as my doctor calls it demylentnating disease.  Then I would have been 59, outside the classic age limit.

So in saying all of that, the point I was trying to make was it is not impossible for someone in the upper/elderly age bracket to be dx w/ MS and why should a doctor be so shocked when it happens?

Hope this clears up my cog fog ramblings

Wishing you a blessed and peaceful Holiday

terry

terry

[Quixotic1]

Meg - ess is correct, except that the accepted onset of MS is when the symptoms began, not when the lesions began.

It means both things.  Many people have had symptoms for years but didn't get a diangosis until later in life.

Other people actually had the beginning of their MS symptoms later in life.

For me it was both.  My onset of symptoms was at 52.  Then it took 2 years to get a diagnosis.

The DMDs seem to be most effective in the first several years of the disease (5 - 7), but are most effective as soon after the onset of symptoms as possible.  Yes, the DMDs appear to be most effective for anyone (no matter what age) earlier in their disease.

Does this clear things up?

Quix

[essdipity]

I'll try and answer this one. It's possible to have absolutely no symptoms until whammy, you've got a lot. This can happen at any age.

It's equally possible that looking back, you see that things were strange for many years but you just didn't think about them, especially if the symptoms go away. This happened to me several times. I'd just say, well, whatever it was is gone and I'm glad.

Unless you have had regular MRIs, you couldn't know when you first got lesions that turned into MS. You could have loads but if they don't cause symptoms (and many brain lesions don't, thank heavens) you would go on living normally, never giving MS a thought.

So for you or for any of us, we just don't know how early MS might have been diagnosed if there were significant symptoms.

Quix can tell you herself how she is doing on the meds. It's not all that well, but perhaps without Avonex it would be much worse. The DMDs don't claim to halt MS or its symptoms. But statistically, patients on them have a 40% reduction in relapses compared to control groups. They don't help all users, some not even a little. But it's the best act in town, so we take our chances. We don't want to have to kick ourselves later on that maybe we bypassed a chance, and now are significantly debilitated.

ess

[meg321]

So, Quix, does that mean that the onset could be at an older age or you could have had it at a younger age but un-dx'd  until you are older?

If your onset was at age 52 , then the meds would have helped you ? Right?

thanks,meg

[Quixotic1]

terry

There are two issue here,  the first is age at diagnosis.  You're right that if they have had it at a younger age, they will still have it in their 60's and 70's.  BUT, Brain lesions and strokes are so much more common in the elderly (yes, folks, in the neurologic world 60-75 is elderly and beyond is "very elderly.")  Most neurologist are very hesitant to consider this diagnosis, even when the history goes back to the "classic" age.

The second point is "age at symptom onset."  It is rare but there are plenty of people with symptom onset after 50.  When the onset is this late, the neuros are even more hestitant to consider MS.  But the study that ess referred to dealt with 165 people in Spain whose diagnosis was after 60, and many of whom had their onset also after 60.  The oldest at diagnosis in that study was 78 and the oldest at symptom onset was 72.  There are older people in both categories that have been reported.  There is no reason in the world why there would be a true "upper limit."

I was 52 at onset and 54 at diagnosis.

BTW the youngest at diagnosis, I believe, was 18 months old.  

They can't be too rigid about age.  At either end they must examine the evidence more carefully, but MS cannot be dismissed outright because of age.

Quix

ps.  I edit as I go along.  If I took the time to be perfect, I would never get anything posted.

becasue=because

[saveone]

All the time.  But don't worry about.  All of speak MS Greek.

[meg321]

Do any of you re-read your posts after its too late and notice all of the errors..damn, i hate that..lol

meg

[meg321]

I just replied to these posts and lost it...that really stresses out but I have lots of time.

Thanks to all of you, that was very interesting,  I knew there was more older persons on here than me.  My cardiologist was the first Dr. who noticed lesions on my MRI right after I had my first so-called stroke, and he sent me to a neuro who told me I was too young and sent me home, but my card always believed i had MS.  Just this last year my primary saw it on another MRI and sent me to UCSF to their MS clinic. IThat stroke only consisted of an attack of horrible vertigo that lasted for weeks and i have been dizzy ever since then.  I questioned that stroke to myself.

thanks guys, that was great....meg

[saveone]

It always confuses me,,,,if you have MS between 20 - 40 you will have it in your 60's and on.  So why would it be unreasonable to think someone in the upper years could not be DX.

One of the first questions my GP asked was how old are you.  If I had said 60 would he have said, forget it you're to old for MS and sent me Home?

terry

[Lulu54]

I was just dx'd at almost 54 - hadn't even been thinking MS until July of this year.  neuro initially said I was too old, but also said he had dx'd MS as young as 8 and as old as 60 something.  I too have been preoccupied with living and not paying attentino to my body but looking back I definitely see patterns of MS going on for close to 20 years.  

We may be on the older end, but we're definitely not out of it because of our age!

Be well, Lulu

[Sailorsong]

My father had symptoms of MS since he was about 37 but it wasn't until he was 66 that he finally got his MS dx. It was only when they did an MRI looking for signs of a stroke that his doctors saw the classic MS liesons in his brain. Over all of those years his doctors kept blaming his symptoms on a large range of other illnesses.

Right now I am 59 and am 99.99% sure I have MS also. My symptoms also started around age 38 but they were not real bad and I just figured I was over working myself. It has only been about 3 years since I started really looking into what is going on as my symptoms have gotten too bad to just ignore. I am expecting that within the next month or so I will have the official DX from my neurologist.

Dennis

[essdipity]

Hey there, Meg. You're not alone in being "old." I am 65 now and was just diagnosed this past January. I first noticed symptoms when I was in my late 50s, and had a couple of "rounds" before starting to pin this thing down one way or another.

I was not preoccupied with addiction recovery, but still the idea of MS didn't strike me for years, and actually, doctors brought it up, only to back off when my MRIs were not typical.

One doctor mentioned that he had not long ago diagnosed a 78 year old woman with MS. This kind of thing does happen, just at the far end of the spectrum. There has been mention here from time to time about a study in Spain which included only those over 60. There is no upper or lower age limit with MS.

Hope this helps.

ess