# In a fairly new relationship, do you let him go if major health issues come up



## tpb72 (Feb 18, 2011)

I'm quite a bit in panic mode right now. I have just been referred to be tested for MS. Scared as $hit right now!

I've been doing a lot of googling on it but I still don't have a good feeling about what this could mean for my future.

I've only been with my amazing man for 6 months. I am feeling that it is grossly unfair to continue this relationship if I do indeed have it.

I am very ignorant on this disease and the impact it could have on our lives and as well I am running in scared mode right now.


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## Neil (Jan 5, 2011)

tpb72 said:


> I've only been with my amazing man for 6 months. I am feeling that it is grossly unfair to continue this relationship if I do indeed have it.


What is grossly unfair is him not seemingly having the choice.

You maybe surprised that he could actually want to help you through it all and still want to be with you.


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## Neil (Jan 5, 2011)

PS,

sorry, but on the other hand, you are only referred for a test, does not mean you have it BTW

Stay positive


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## 827Aug (Apr 27, 2008)

Don't panic just yet. Wait on the test results first. Even then there is no need to panic. Panic creates too much wasted energy. I have seen MS patients live a full life for many years.

The decision should be up to your SO as to whether he wants to stick around. You shouldn't push him away. Besides people with chronic health problems do much better if they have a very close support system.

Hugs and prayers for you.


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## ThinkTooMuch (Aug 6, 2010)

Being bummed out, unhappy, fearful are all legitimate responses and it will take a while before your heart slows down.

Note that you are much more likely to die in an automobile accident than from MS. I've had seven friends die in auto accidents and one with severe MS.

I would discuss your symptoms with your BF along with possible causes and your concerns. Just because your doctor wants you tested it doesn't mean you have MS. Wait until you get a formal diagnosis based on MRIs, your history, and possibly a lumbar puncture. There are a number of illnesses, Lyme (difficult to test for) near the top of the list, fibromyalgia and others, that have similar symptoms.

While none of these are good to have, please realize that MS is not a death sentence, and full lives can be lived with MS and great progress is being made in understanding and treatment.

There are a number of disease modifying drugs (DMDs) - Copaxone, Tysabri, several interferons, Novantrone, and now an oral med - Gilenya that delay MS progression.

I know from personal experience and a lot of reading way more about MS than I want to, I will say that at 62 I'm more active than a lot of people who don't have MS even though I use a scooter when shopping, traveling and going outdoors. I've been on Tysabri for four years with almost no change in symptoms. 

I am not a health care professional so take my words with a large grain of salt.

If I were diagnosed with Relapsing/Remitting MS I would start by taking Copaxone, it has a good record for slowing MS progression and reducing the number of relapses; the longer you take it the more effective it seems to be. My second choice would be Gilenya as it is a pill, even though it has only recently been approved and it doesn't have C's track record. I would avoid Avonex (an interferon) - I don't think it is as effective as the Rebif or beta interferon because it is administered in a lower dose. I'd seriously consider Tysabri despite a small risk of PML.

There are several actions you need to take before you get a formal diagnosis of MS from your physician.

1. sign up for long term care insurance
2. buy 20 year term life insurance for several to ten times your expected annual income.
3. start taking 4,000 to 8,000 IUs of vitamin D3 daily - very important, high levels of vitamin D seems to delay MS progression. Researchers at U of Wisconsin have recently issued a report you can find on ScienceDaily.com
4. Participate in an on-line MS Forum - there are quite a few with varying flavors so I won't recommend one.​
Hope this helps, feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss this privately.



tpb72 said:


> I'm quite a bit in panic mode right now. I have just been referred to be tested for MS. Scared as $hit right now!
> 
> I've been doing a lot of googling on it but I still don't have a good feeling about what this could mean for my future.
> 
> ...


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## tpb72 (Feb 18, 2011)

Had a big conversation with my man about stuff today (mostly the possibility of him moving in ... that might be another thread) and I brought this up.

My initial consultation appt with the neurologist is on Friday and he's coming along for moral support.

His thoughts were that I've been having the symptoms I'm suffering from for over 5 years already and there's nothing saying in 10 or 20 years it's going to get much worse (since they haven't in the last 5). By then either of us could have a stroke or get in an accident or anything. I'm thinking at this point that's pretty easy to say when I'm just going for testing. The real thought and conversation won't need to happen unless I test positive. 

ThinksToMuch, 
After my dad died of Huntingtons a number of years ago I went straight to my HR dept and upped my life and disability insurance. I then purchase a smaller personal one on the side as well so I think I'm pretty covered there. My mortgage and all my loans are insured too. Living in Canada we get quite a bit of medical coverage for free so with everything I think I should be okay. Only weak point is short term disability coverage - that's major expensive! Decided instead to go with the 3 months savings idea just in case. 

I will start with the D3 right away. As well as finding me a MS forum . 

I might just take you up on the PM ... I'm kind of hoping on Friday the guy say it's not even worth pursuing more tests because there's just no way (maybe a little bit of hopeful denial there). 

I really wish the list of symptoms weren't so long! I've been doing some reading up and some of my other ailments may fit as well. Panic may be way too mild of a term to use right now.


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## ThinkTooMuch (Aug 6, 2010)

tbp72,

Hope your panic is diminishing, you describe a major problem with the internet - to exaggerate - we go online and learn our frequent headaches are caused by brain tumors, not low grade sinus infections. When I was in college in the late 60s med school students were the classic sufferers, rare fatal diseases the favored diagnoses.

Having seen both male and female dr.s respond to women, having him with you on Friday is a good idea, beware your neuro might bypass you and ask him questions - this happened when I accompanied my stbxw to several exams by various dr.s. w and I found that she had to explicitly tell the physician to talk to her - my job was to listen, take notes, and possibly ask a few questions if she didn't. 

Don't be surprised if you leave the office w/o a diagnosis - it isn't unknown and can be very frustrating.

If you have MS please be very aware that depression due to the disease process - not your reaction to having MS - is very common; sooner or later one of your physicians will Rx an anti-depressant rather casually. Don't fill the Rx until you do a lot of research on the medicine and dosage - some ADs are very hard and very unpleasant to stop.

Your guy sounds like a keeper, good luck to both of you.











tpb72 said:


> Had a big conversation with my man about stuff today (mostly the possibility of him moving in ... that might be another thread) and I brought this up.
> 
> My initial consultation appt with the neurologist is on Friday and he's coming along for moral support.
> 
> ...


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## greeneyeddolphin (May 31, 2010)

No, you don't let him go, unless he wants to be let go. You tell him what's going on, and you let him decide if it's fair or not for him to stay. 

Six months may seem like a short time, but that's really quite a bit of time to invest in a relationship. If he's invested six months, I'd say it's a safe bet he's pretty into you, which means he's not likely to turn tail and run. He could, sure, but it should be his choice to be a coward and run, not your choice to push him away and ignore him.


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## loren (Sep 13, 2010)

atruckersgirl said:


> No, you don't let him go, unless he wants to be let go. You tell him what's going on, and you let him decide if it's fair or not for him to stay.
> 
> Six months may seem like a short time, but that's really quite a bit of time to invest in a relationship. If he's invested six months, I'd say it's a safe bet he's pretty into you, which means he's not likely to turn tail and run. He could, sure, but it should be his choice to be a coward and run, not your choice to push him away and ignore him.


Precisely. My friend had a fairly serious condition diagnosed for which she underwent lots of surgery. This was very early in her relationship too. She told him straight, gave him all the info, and practically told him to bail, to make things easier all round... He ignored her demands to bail (and if you know my friend you'd know that ignoring her demands is no mean feat), saw her through it and they are now married. Don't just throw this guy away, he might be made of tougher stuff than you think, and his feelings might run deep. Another 'might' is that you might not have it. Stay positive. God bless.


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## Anooniemouse (May 5, 2010)

I have something not too terribly dissimilar in what it can do called neurosarcoidois. I understand your concerns, but I want to put something in perspective here. There are no guarantees in life. Anyone can get sick at any time, anyone can have a major financial hurdle, injured on the job, yadda, DCSE can make your life a living hell, or any number of a billion things that can go wrong in ones life. This is just one thing. 

MS falls by percentages as to who gets severely effected. A small percent at the top have a straight progressive course. A large number have a frequent relapse, and remitting pattern. Some have an infrequent pattern (which can mean years between problems). Even those with the last 2 patterns can often merge into the final category, those that have very little symptomology their entire life, or 1-3 events. 

I know one lady with MS who was severely symptomatic for 15 years, and then one day it just quit. She hasn't had a flare in almost 20 years now. You never know the course. 

Its not as bad as you think... If the standard treatments don't work out, Dr. Stratton & Dr Wheldon have developed a treating using antibiotics that seems to work for a large number of people who have straight progressive MS to reign it in. 



MS & Neurosarcoidosis are similar enough that I've been through about every nasty thing they can do to you during for either in the diagnostic process. If something creeps you out about it, I can probably tell you what they are going to do, the logic behind it, and what to expect.

An experimental treatment has kept me around, and allowed me to have a life again. You never know what will come out, or more important, be utilized in the right way. 

Do get your financial house in order. Do keep your appointments. Do remember that you could have any number of things with similar symptoms from rare things like Neurosarc & MS, to much more common problems like Neuro-lyme disease (which has at least 30 strains that we know of, and the standard test kit only checks for a few of those), lupus, or any number of other things causing similar problems. 

Okay, you got something wrong, and you don't know what, and its scary. I know, I've been there. It took them years to give me a diagnosis, and it was the wrong one to boot. Until you have something really crystal clear to spell it out on, don't assume anything. Take doctors with a grain of salt. Talk to the people who have been there; they often know more about these diseases than the doctors do. And beware of specialists that seem to put everybody on the same thing; they are likely running their own trial rather than having the patients unique, and best interest at heart (unless of course, the thing they tend to have out is something you dearly want to try, and know the risks of).


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## SaffronPower (Mar 6, 2011)

So glad you told him and he's going for moral support Friday. Good luck.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Well it depends. Do you approach it like the normal course of things in someone's life or do you approach is heroically. I don't need heroes. Why? Because for example there's a 50% change I will get Alzheimer's. Those odds suck. But I've already had cancer twice so maybe that will get me first. I don't know. In either case, you can't really plan around it. You can't plan that horrible things won't happen. All you can do is hope for the best. Maybe MS won't be such a terrible thing to your relationship. Again, that's for you to discover. A friend of mine got served with divorce papers while the chemotherapy IV was in his arm. Some people just suck at being human beings. Others, not so much.


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## tpb72 (Feb 18, 2011)

Well, I went yesterday. I am being sent for an MRI now and then I have to go back again so no results yet.

The bf was coming along to the appointment with me but it never occurred to me to actually have him come in with me until it was suggested here. I asked him if he wanted to and his gut reaction was a no. When we were sitting in the waiting room though he said maybe he would like to come with if it was okay.

He was very good at relieving my nervousness - he went and asked the dr if he could prescribe something for me that would make me listen to direction better (my big goof).

On a holding pattern now until after the MRI.


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