Stress causes MS symptoms to get worse, and it may even trigger a full-blown exacerbation. Ask anyone with MS and the conclusion is that stress affects MS. As the MS gets worse, the stress gets worse, too. This is a vicious circle that continues to amass tertiary pain.

Depression
Everything already listed leads to depression -- each topic and every point under the topic. MS is a depressing condition.

Depression may be caused by the loss of a job, a sweetheart or a circle of friends. When financial difficulties hit, depression cannot be far behind. Most people with MS, or living with someone with MS, are depressed at least some of the time.

To strengthen this vicious circle, the very medication meant to treat MS has depression as a side effect.   It is an upstream battle to forge ahead while MS continually breaks down the body's ability to function.  Depression takes away any interest in making an effort and saps whatever energy may be remaining.  There is no denying that depression is painful and that it is closely related to MS.

The National MS Society tell us "Severe depression can be a life-threatening condition because it may include suicidal feelings. One study found that the risk of suicide was 7.5 times higher among persons with MS than the general population."

Tertiary pain,  the social, vocational and psychological complications brought on by primary and secondary symptoms, can be as painful, albeit it in a different way, as any pain associated with MS. Those described here, and others like them, are life changing, sometimes devastatingly so, and rarely in a positive light.  MS steals our function, and it also steals our self-confidence, scrambles our social lives, and reduces or eliminates our independence.

In the next several articles, I am going to talk about other ways MS causes or intensifies pain, and treatment of MS pain, before concluding this series.  If there is something else about pain you would like to talk about, please let me know.

Notes and Links
* There are so many links here, but they are worth going through. There are some on stress and depression, and many on Quality of Life. Then there are a couple of others. Each one is clearly identified to make selection easy. Enjoy them at your leisure.

Julie Stachowiak on Stress
Stress and Women
Julie Stachowiak on Depression
WebMD Depression and MS

WebMD MS symptoms
NMSS Depression
Lisa Emrich's series on Quality of Life
Side effects of disease-modifying drugs
Even small positive experiences are uplifting for Quality of Life
MSIF on promoting Quality of Life
What does Quality of Life mean?