Multiple sclerosis (MS) is not a predictable or dependable disease. Each person experiences MS in a uniquely personal way. Others might be able to empathize or sympathize with the condition, but no one can possibly know the feelings except for the person who has multiple sclerosis.
MS Episode Symptoms
An MS reminder has various names, but it all comes down to the same event--the return of symptoms. An exacerbation, relapse, episode, attack or flare indicates that MS has returned. The symptoms that herald a relapse of MS are weakness, stiffness and leg drag; foggy and blurred vision; and a numbness, tingling and/or pins and needles sensation.
Definition of a Relapse
Inflammation in some area of the central nervous system (CNS) is the cause of exacerbation, which could last at least 24 hours and be 30 days or more from the last experience. While a person who deals with MS constantly might be ecstatic at the 24-hour prospect, this would be a welcome aberration. The fact is that most episodes last from a few days to several weeks or months. A relapse can be debilitating and disabling, upsetting the normal flow of daily activity.
Anatomy of a Relapse
An episode can either cause new symptoms or make old ones worse. These flares are not the same for every person or even for separate events experienced by one person. A relapse could be an episode of optic neuritis, which results from inflammation of the optic nerve. This could impair or totally block vision.
Another relapse might involve a persistent spinning of your surrounding environment along with problems of balance or an intense fatigue. Any of these incidents alone can leave a person with the feeling of helplessness (sometimes leading to depression), but think about what would happen if they all attacked together, as is often the case.
The Pseudoexacerbation
Then, there are the pretend episodes. They act like MS, but are they really MS? Consider that most medical terms have roots in the Greek language of long ago. "Pseudo" is one of those terms. A pseudoexacerbation can have negative implications when used in the vernacular of the present day.
Heat and humidity are the most common causes of a pseudoexacerbation. There are other triggers, too, such as urinary tract infection, the common cold, a virus or exertion during exercise. An old symptom could return without causing any additional damage to the central nervous system.
That old symptom acts like an episode, but it is short-lived and the result of some external event that raises the body temperature and causes slower transmission of nerve signals to the brain. The fact that it acts "like" an episode, identifies it as a term of comparison and, therefore, a pseudoexacerbation.
Disappearance of a Pseudoexacerbation
Pseudoexacerbations get better without treatment when the body temperature returns to normal. The majority of people with multiple sclerosis have one to three pseudoexacerbations each year. Some people have reported many more annual episodes.
According to the medical advisers at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, these four points apply to a pseudo-attack: they will resolve within 24 hours of cooling off (or the end of a fever); intermediate exacerbations could last longer and not be heat-related; there are no clinical markers to identify the length of time that an episode will last; and with time, an exacerbation will settle down. Also, there are treatments available that may lessen and shorten a lengthy attack.
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