That's good that you don't have any pain. I'm in a chronic state, since I was 19, I'm 22 now. I hope that doesn't change for you. There are different degrees of nerve injuries. 1-4 most commonly, sometimes debated, or on different ranked systems. 1-2 are myelin damage partial to full, then 3-4 are axon damage partial to full. I have full axon damage in my face including my eye. Mine will never heal or repair itself. The type of nerve injury you have corresponds to the recovery time. So this is probably a good sign, that is hasn't gotten too progressive, I would think, just my opinion. Let me know, I know this forum helped in my pre-diagnostic state...
Thanks, that article helped. I definitely will get a second opinion. I'm just waiting for that other test to be sure if it is optic neuritis or not. But in the articles about optic neuritis, it always says that people who have it have pain in their eye. And I don't have any pain with it. I guess I just won't be sure till I have that test done.
Melissa
Hi Melissa,
I'm sure you're having a hard time. I had to go to several drs. before I got a diagnosis I was looking for. Sometimes you have to be your own dr. (to a certain extent of course) You know yourself better than anyone else. I fought with my drs. for two years, and my family, to try and thell them that something was wrong and no one believed me. I researched and researched, in case anyone can tell, lol, and I walked in and said ok listen I know I have Trigeminal Neuralgia, it's secondary from my suboccipital craniectomy, not primary, I have my records, I have my MRI's I want to try Tegretol or Neurontin as an add on. If that fails, then you can try what you think. I got fed-up. And I finally got a dr. who took me seriously and listened, and now I'm as good as I can be. I included an article, and not sure how much you know about optic neuritis. If you read the article it finitely states a symptom of MS. and as soon as you said white plaques, I kind of had a feeling this was where it was going unfortunately. It does say that most times it does go away in a 8-10 week time frame; however, it does include exceptions. Your myelin can heal because it isn't a severe injury to your nerve or it depends if your axons are damaged. And in the medical field, drs. forget every individual is not standard textbook, so there is potential to have a different outcome than what they think or what the book says. My point is don't let a dr. dismiss you and let you think this isn't relevant, get a few more opinions, if you can, especially that you know you have MS. Sadly that causes an array of symptoms, so for him to dismiss anything is kind of ridiculous. Let me know if this helps, and keep me posted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_neuritis