A few years before I was married and had even thought about having children, I was at home alone when there was a knock at the door. I hadn’t lived there for long, and a small group of people had dropped by to welcome me to the neighborhood. I invited…

I often see posts on social media from people with multiple sclerosis asking if crying for no reason is an MS symptom. It can be. Laughing for no reason can be, too. Both can be severe, persistent, unremitting, and unpredictable. The medical name for this is…

Early Detection of Pseudobulbar Affect May Help Ease MS Symptom I often see posts on social media from people with MS asking if crying for no reason is an MS symptom, because it happens to them. I didn’t know that apparently, it is. Laughing, too. This report says…

In its inaugural issue, a publication from The Gerontological Society of America provides information about recognizing and managing pseudobulbar affect — uncontrolled outbursts of crying or laughing that the authors say are one of the most “underrecognized and undertreated” symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurological conditions. The…

Editor’s note: “Need to Know” is a series inspired by common forum questions and comments from readers. Have a comment or question about MS? Visit our forums. This week’s question is inspired by the forum topic “Do you have mood swings? What helps?” from Nov. 27, 2018. Do you…

I sat stunned as tears welled. I gazed toward the pain in my knee. My pants were torn. Blood pooled, then dripped down my calf. I was transfixed. The contents of my purse were strewn beneath a car. I reached for my phone but recoiled from the pain in my…

I saw a praying mantis this morning. The long, leaf-like oddity caught me off guard. I was transfixed by the beautiful specimen, its prayerful state contrasting starkly with its violent mating ritual. The female is known to eat the head of the male — a shift in temperament at…

Multiple sclerosis, as with other neurological disorders, brings a lot of changes to our bodies. Many changes and symptoms are much more common than others. It is the lesser-known conditions that MS evokes that sparked my interest for this column. Pseudobulbar Affect (PBA): is a rare condition reported to…

March is Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Awareness Month, and the  Multiple Sclerosis Association of America (MSAA) will be marking it with a campaign to educate and heighten public awareness of the disease and the needs of the MS community. For this campaign, the MSAA will dedicate each week in March to a…

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict responses to depression treatment in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to Anthony Feinstein, Professor at the Department of Psychiatry of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre & the University of Toronto. In the presentation “Depression in MS: Is brain imaging helpful?” at this…