It is no exaggeration to say that sometimes people who have MS are mistaken for those who are intoxicated. Who needs alcohol when you already may have symptoms of feeling off balance, having an unsteady gait, and vertigo? And then you add some slurry speech to the mix and you might pass for Otis the drunk on the Andy Griffith show.
Did you know that the slurry speech caused by MS has a fancy name which is hard to pronounce (at least for me)? Well of course it does. There is always some new terminology to look up when you are diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. It is officially called "dysarthria" which simply means that the muscles which control your speech are weak. We tend to think of MS causing weak muscle limbs such as in our legs and arms but it can also affect those muscles needed for talking and swallowing.
How many people who have MS have this problem and how severe does it usually become?
The National MS Society tells us that between 40-50 percent of people who have MS will have speech difficulties. But for most of these people the changes in speech are mild and it is still possible to be understood.
How do I know about dysarthria?
I know about it because I have experienced it many times now since my diagnosis of MS.
My mother tells me that when I first learned to talk, I didn't say many single words but came bursting forth with full sentences. Talking is something I have been doing for decades and I have never thought twice about it. I took this capability for granted until I both of my sons had speech difficulties early on. My youngest child who has autism has severe speech problems and has what is known as apraxia of speech. Whereas dysarthria is caused by weak speech muscles, apraxia is a motor planning disorder making it difficult for the person to accurately sequence movements needed to produce speech sounds.
After my youngest son was diagnosed with autism, I was told that he may never learn to talk. Basically I had to teach my child to talk (with a lot of help from speech therapists) and we did succeed after more than several years of intensive work. I remember days when he could not even suck from a straw or blow bubbles. If you think that the ability to produce speech is something easy, think again. There are so many complex systems at work that I find it a miracle that anyone can talk. My work with my son and in the field of special education has taught me never to take this ability for granted again.
But I must say that the first time I lost my speaking abilities due to my MS, I was surprised.
What is it like to have dysarthria?
The first time I experienced speech problems due to my MS, I was in a park with my son. It was one of those first hot days after spring and the heat caught me by surprise. All of a sudden I was having not only problems walking but found myself unable to talk very well. When I tried to make sounds I lingered on those initial consonants in an attempt to push the word out. So if I were trying to approximate the word, "stop" for example, it would come out this way: "Stttttttt (pause) and then an explosive "OP!" It seemed to take so much energy just to get out but single words. I knew I would have to conserve my energy for the most important messages I wanted to say. It felt as though the words were stuck in my mouth like a bunch of marbles and that I needed this tremendous amount of energy and concentration to force them out of my mouth. I have also had the problem of feeling so weak that my voice muted to barely audible.
