Learning about my diagnosis of MS happened very quickly in the world of medicine, testing, and various criteria that have to be met in order to say that something is definitely the case. John and I (and our families) were surprised, shocked, scared, sad and hopeful all at once.
In the four months since my diagnosis, we've learned a lot - and still have a lot to learn. As I'm learning more and more, I'm finding that I have likely had some symptoms associated with Multiple Sclerosis for quite some time. It's interesting and somehow comforting to learn these bits and pieces that make more sense in retrospect.
One of the symptoms that is a bit mysterious even as a known and identified MS symptom is the "MS Hug." Several years ago - perhaps at least 10, and maybe more - I talked to my doctor at the time about some intermittent pain around my chest/sides/back/abdomen. She guessed at the time that I was experiencing intercostal muscle spasms. The intercostals are very small muscles between/around our ribs. The doctor theorized that because I'm a trained singer, and I breathe very deeply most of the time naturally from studying voice, that I was hyper sensitive to these muscle spasms. This idea meant that the kind of spasm I was hurting from might not be all that uncommon, but other people might not breathe as deeply on a regular basis and so might not notice them. This seemed (and still does, really) like a pretty reasonable explanation for something I grew accustomed to. Now, though? It makes a heck of a lot of sense that this could be a symptom of my MS. This blog post contains the best description and explanation for the MS Hug that I have found so far. The blog is on the Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre website, a nice resource site based somewhere in the UK that I have happened on.
Interesting, indeed. I'm gonna keep on with this learning stuff...
(Spell checker on my blog platform really wanted me to change the spelling of intercostal to Pentecostal. It occurs to me that I also may experience pentecostal muscle spasms on occasion.)
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