What MS can involve
Multiple sclerosis affects the nerves in the brain and spinal cord, and few conditions vary as much day to day. Fatigue is the symptom people with MS most often name as the hardest, and it's also the one least visible from outside. Heat makes many symptoms louder, which is why a warm room can undo an afternoon.
Numbness, weakness, balance, vision and bladder symptoms can come and go, and the gap between appointments is long. A record kept as it happened shows what changed and when, rather than leaving you to summarise months of variation in a short conversation with your MS nurse or neurologist.
Symptoms checklist
MS symptoms checklist to take to your GP
Below are some of the symptoms associated with MS. You can print the MS checklist and weekly diary and fill it in by hand.
See what applies to you, note how often it happens, and take it to your appointment, so the conversation starts further along. It describes your experience. It does not say what is causing anything: having many of these does not mean you have MS, and having few does not mean you do not. Only a clinician can work that out with you.
- Fatigue
- Numbness or tingling
- Muscle weakness
- Balance problems
- Brain fog
- Vision changes
- Heat sensitivity
- Bladder problems
- Something else I want to mention
Print the MS checklist and weekly diary Download as PDF
The list comes from the NHS and charity sources linked further down this page, and from what people living with MS tell us they keep an eye on. It is a starting point, not a test.
How a day can feel
If your days sound anything like this, taluvu was made with you in mind.
- “The fatigue isn't tiredness. It's a different thing entirely.”
- “I was fine this morning and useless by two.”
- “Heat undoes me and nobody believes that's a symptom.”
- “I look well, which is its own problem.”
- “I can't tell if this is a new thing or the same thing.”
These are the kinds of things taluvu invites you to say in your own words, never a checklist of what anyone “should” have.
