There was a great and timely question on the MSFocus Forum that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention. See the question and my answer, below:
Question:
I have RR - diagnosed in 1996, and has been getting much worse lately. I am in a family dynamic that is highly stressful - and I read something about emotional lability? I have had some very tough days with being unable to control emotions, grumpy, crying, laughing at anything. I recently started Betasaron again, and wonder if that might help the symptoms. My wife and I are close to breaking up, as she says she can not live with the MS symptoms anymore. Do you know of other people that have these kinds of difficulties with relationships and stress? And, do you know of anything that might help?
Answer:
Family dynamics can be difficult at times, and having a lifetime diagnosis often makes things worse (but I see plenty of couples whose relationship has been tried and strengthened through the diagnosis).
It seems like there are two questions here:
1. Can tress make your MS symptoms worse?
2. Can stress make a person have emotional lability?
The answer to the first question is that it seems that stress can make everything worse. MS symptoms can be affected by heat, and stress can increase core body temperature.
The answer to the second question is that people with MS may have something called emotional lability (pseudobulbar affect), meaning that there may be dramatic changes in emotions without a clear cause for the dramatic nature of the emotional outbursts. This can be socially disabling, such as when a person starts laughing at a funeral or crying at a funny joke (interestingly, all of us have this a littl ebit, like when we cry at a wedding).
Besides psychological counseling, doctors sometimes prescribe SSRIs (selective seretonin reuptake inhibitors), one of the classes of antidepressants. A company named Avanir is developing a medication called Zenvia ( a combination of dextromethorphan and quinidine) for emotional lability in MS patients, so there will be another treatment option available to you (hopefully) soon.
Thank you,
- Dr. Daniel Kantor, MD BSE Medical Director
Neurologique
info@neurologique.org
www.neurologique.org
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