Good news?

[lenamac]

Hi all,

I have been diagnosed with MS in the last 6 months although I believe I have had since I was 18 just based on previous incidents.I just had my first cervical (spinal) MRI a few weeks ago and there were no lesions. I do have lesions on my brain which is what resulted in my  diagnosis. Is that good to not have lesions on the spine? I had always thought they were fairly common in R/R ms patients. My neurologist seemed to think it was not negative but didn't go in to much detail.

[COBOB]

Once you have been diagnosed, the symptoms are what is important.  It is very difficult to image lesions of the cord.  There are many times when symptoms will indicate a cord lesion long before one will ever been seen on MRI.   Many neurologic symptoms in patients may present with out visible lesions.  There is a minimum size for lesions to be visible on MRI, no matter what the power of the MRI is.  Microscopic damage may present as clinical symptoms, and these may never be demonstrated by MRI.  This is why a positive MRI is not required for a diagnosis of MS.

This is why you may hear that MS is a "probable" diagnosis.  MS can only be proven by sectioning the brain and microscopic examination at autopsy.  

Bob

[Sumanadevii]

I don't think it is good news to have lesions on the brain or spine.  Both bring on their own symptoms and neither are very kind!  Let's just hope our DMD's slow the progression and a cure is found soon.

[lenamac]

thank you for responding, I guess that's what scares me. There's so little I feel that I can do to prevent my self from becoming worse. I take my meds and stay in shape but I feel helpless.

[jensequitur]

Well, first of all, sorry about your diagnosis!  But welcome to the forum.  This is a good place to ask questions like that.

It's very good to not have lesions on the spine, but it's not unusual. As far as I can tell, there's several different flavors of RRMS.  Some people have few lesions, but axon breakage and atrophy are still occuring.  Other people have lots of lesions, but seem to be almost symptom-free when not in a relapse.  Some have several lesions in the spine, while others like yourself have none.

The problem with lesions on the spine is that they can lead to disability.

They really know so little about MS that it's hard to predict your disease course from diagnosis.  The neurologist will follow your symptom timeline and make suggestions about treatment, based upon how you're doing.