Why Does MS Seem to Strike Out of the Blue?

Neurologist Lauren B. Krupp, M.D., director of NYU Langone’s Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center in New York City, talks about the reasons you can go from zero symptoms to an MS diagnosis in a matter of weeks.

Why Does MS Seem to Strike Out of the Blue?

Why does MS present when it does is really an unknown question. Someone's doing fine, feeling well, and all of a sudden, these new symptoms develop. Particularly interesting is the fact that the biologic causes or underpinnings of MS probably occur, we think, in the first year or so of life. So why somebody at age 30 should first develop symptoms of MS isn't really clear. Certainly, things that have been associated with, not causing MS but the timing of the development of new symptoms, are things like stress or infections or viral illnesses. These seem to happen often in proximity to the development of an MS clinical event, but stress per se does not cause MS. I emphasize that, because patients often have that question: I have so much stress, is it going to make my MS bad? The reality is life is stressful. We can't avoid stress. It's avoiding life, if you do. There are better or less adaptive ways of dealing with stress. I think it's important not to get stressed about the fact that you're stressed, but to try to work on ways of just managing your stress in a positive, calming sort of fashion.