Lesions and symptoms

[Suzie9]

How quickly do lesions form along side symptoms?
Do lesions occur first then the symptom?
If a patient has new symptoms does it always mean new lesions?
Because new lesions are active are they more likely to show up on MRI than old ones?
Sorry for all the questions!!

[essdipity]

Yes, lesions can heal to the point where they're no longer visible on MRI. However, what one doctor sees may not be what another does. I found out the hard way that radiologists can suck, as can neurologists who don't read their own MRIs.

Most lesions remain visible permanently. They don't enhance if they're not rather new, but enhancing isn't so important, unless 'dissemination in time' is a current issue. It's really common for no lesions to enhance. I have a head full of them and none has ever enhanced on MRI.

It's seldom possible to correlate lesions and symptoms. You can have many symptoms and clear MRIs, which is mainly why limboland exists, you can have new symptoms without new lesions, etc. You can also have many lesions and no symptoms.

If you have MS, you can have flares and unchanged MRIs.  You can have no flares and unchanged MRIs. Sometimes neuros are incompetent enough to remove the MS diagnosis when either of these happens. This is especially maddening when the patient is on one of the DMDs, since that's the whole purpose of the meds.

I think I'm in a crabby mood this morning, so I'll stop here. Don't want to insult the many good and competent doctors who are treating us appropriately.

ess  

[lovemy6monkeys]

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the lesions can heal to the point where they are no longer visible. I *think* that would most likely mean the damage to the nerve has healed enough that the symptom remits completely, or at the very least almost completely.

~Jess

[Suzie9]

That was excellent information and very useful. Thank you.

So can lesions only be seen while they are active?

When I last saw the neurologist he said the lesions on my spine where no longer visible. This was about 3 years after my first attack. So how long do lesions usually stay visible on MRI? (The machine I had was a 3T).

[Quixotic1]

I recommend the Helath page on this very topic:

http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Multiple-Sclerosis/Lesions-vs-Symptoms/show/61?cid=36

After reading this see which questions you still have.

Quix