just wondering!

[hope_i_remember]

Hi,
I'm wondering if I am too old to be diagnosed with MS? I am 57 years old. I have had recurring bouts of vertigo and balance problems since I was 38 yrs old. I now have numbness from the waist down legs and feet..but only in the front of my body. I have other things too like memory troubles..quite bad at times..I thought this was an ageing thing and maybe it is....headaches and confusion, eye sight problems ..I call all those things my FUZZY head and they occur from time to time. I am being sent for a lot of tests, cat scan, echo, ecg, and some neuro electricity stuff that... guess what... I can't remember....anyway I think I have a lot of MS symptoms as I read about it , but I think I am too old to have not been diagnosed before and maybe am being silly trying to conect symptoms that are not related. Does anyone have any thoughts or experiences that can help me figure this out, Thanx!

[sandie490]

HEY

WHAT KIND OF VISION PROBLEMS DO YOU HAVE?

[Lulu54]

Hope,
I hope you will stick around here and learn more about MS.  Our health pages are loaded with wonderful information written in easy to unerstand format by our very own members.  There is excellent information on how to proceed with your doctors and what tests should be performed if you believe you may have MS.  

We hope you come back and let us know how this turns out for you.

Lulu

[hope_i_remember]

Hi, thanks for your thoughts on my situation. I have also been communicating with my sister...she is younger than me by 6 years and lives clear across the country! She just got told by her Dr that she probably has fybromialgia. She tells me she is suffering from chronic fatigue that started recently and has pain in her joints and muscles. She complains of vision problems..blurred I think, and bad memory loss..I think worse than mine. I told her that maybe we have the same condition with different symptoms..maybe MS. I think that it's common within families. I am having a hard time digesting all of this.."whodda thunk it"

[BOK2Bjan]

Heavens, you state you've had symptoms since your 30s.  The problem with saying a dx is usually made by a certain age is that it really doesn't have anything to do with whether the disease started at that point.  Like Lulu, I was dx in my 50s - 54 to be exact.  Turns out, my MRIs were positive for ms-like lesions in 04, and symptoms go back 10 years.  Sometimes it's just not caught.  Also, it is possible, just not common, for the disease to start at a later age.  I hope your tests go well.  Remember though, that MS takes a while to diagnose.  After the first MRI, another has to show changes over time for the diagnosis to be made.  Of course that's not all, but it is why you can't get an immediate diagnosis when it is first brought to a doctor's attention.

I wish you well.  Stay tuned to learn and share with us.

Blessings, Jan

[lala47]

I am by NO means an expert on MS.  But I watched a great interview on you-tube with a MS specialist that stated that she had dx'ed people alot older than you with MS.  So I would say NO your not to old.  

Hope this helps,
lala

[Lulu54]

Too old?  Never!  there are a bunch of us here who have been dx'd in our 50's and even into the 60's.  3 out of 4 of us co-community leaders fit this description. I was just dx'd last Sept, 2 weeks short of my 54th birthday.

Please don't let the doctors dismiss your questions about MS, based on age.

be well,
Lulu