Women are three times more likely to get MS, but diagnosis takes four to six years because symptoms like fatigue and vision changes get dismissed as anxiety. Early treatment can slow progression by 50%, and Dr. Aaron Hartman says treatable causes like Lyme disease and Epstein-Barr virus may underlie the condition.
Chapters
This illness, women are 3 times more likely to suffer from it than men. And symptoms start early. Fatigue, visual changes. Sometimes you can actually have visual loss. That was actually how I saw my first case of this when I was an intern at the Medical College of Virginia. Tiredness, weakness. Sometimes the doctors think if you're kind of off, they will diagnose you with anxiety. You might see multiple specialists, including neurologists, and you're just stressed. It gets overlooked. What possibly could I be talking about? Multiple sclerosis, also known as one of the many great imitators, can look like almost anything. It can present suddenly like acute visual loss or present slowly over years. Yet, this is one of the conditions that women get gaslit on routinely. What does that mean? You go to the physician specialist and you're told nothing's wrong with you, it's all in your head. And later on, you find out, oops, it's multiple sclerosis. This happens all the time. So let's talk about some numbers. I love numbers. Multiple sclerosis affects 1 million Americans, with women being 3 times more likely than men to be affected by it. So if you're a lady out there, you have to already have your radar up thinking about this. The average wait time for a diagnosis is 4 years to 6 years, seeing up to 5 different specialists. Here's the issue. Early multiple sclerosis diagnosis and treatment can slow and reduce disease progression by up to 50%. So this is not just an anecdotal academic thing. It actually can change outcomes. And if you work with a functional medicine practitioner, we can get the root cause. I've had patients have their MS be related to Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr, and mold. Those are 3 of the most common ones I see. And those are all things that can be treatable. And you can actually see the multiple sclerosis go into remission if you have one of those treatable conditions. The point is that's something that our system routinely overlooks. And if you're not working with a functional practitioner, you're not going to find those treatable causes. You'll just get the medications. You have to become educated, become an advocate for your own health. If you're a female out there listening to this and you have a friend or someone who's actually had multiple sclerosis that took years and years to get diagnosed, I'd love to hear your story. This is how we can educate each other. And I'd be curious if you did a functional medicine treatment and you had a great response, I'd be curious what you did as well. I'm always up to learning new things from people. But the thing about it is this is how we actually take medicine forward, educating each other, listening to each other, and ultimate, And listen to our bodies and find a practitioner that'll work with you. Share below and I'd love to hear from you.
