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Rhianna Benson
Multiple sclerosis has long been considered something of an enigma in the medical field, being that the life-long condition has no known cause.
However, a new study has supposedly shed light on several indicators of the illness that can appear as many as 15 years before any other common symptoms emerge.
MS is a condition that affects both the brain and the body, occurring when the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the nerve cells in the brain or spinal cord.
"This damages and scars the sheath, and potentially the underlying nerves, meaning that messages travelling along the nerves become slowed or disrupted," the NHS explains.
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As such, the condition can trigger a wide range of potential symptoms - including numbness/tingling in different parts of the body, feeling off balance or dizzy, and vision problems.
Other common side effects of MS include walking troubles, bladder issues, muscle stiffness/spasms and problems with cognition/thinking/learning.
However, a recent study carried out by the University of British Columbia (UBC) claims there's another set of MS symptoms that are said to sometimes fly under the radar, or be put down to other ailments.
And shockingly, they can emerge up to 15 years before diagnosis.
These are:
In the study, the health records of 12,000 patients - specifically the frequency of their GP visits during the 25 years before their MS diagnoses - were assessed by experts.
A steady increase was reportedly found in the number of GP visits as early as 15 years before some of the condition's more typical neurological symptoms set in.
This was especially the case for complaints over fatigue, pain, dizziness, anxiety and depression.
It was simultaneously found that visits to psychiatrists for mental health problems increased during the 12-year run-up.
In terms of visits to eye doctors (neurologists and ophthalmologists), reports of blurry vision or pain increased between eight and nine years before the diagnosis, while emergency and radiology department visits steadily rose between three and five years before.
Lastly, a steady increase in visits to specialist physicians was documented as long as a year before diagnosis.
According to Dr. Marta Ruiz-Algueró, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC and the study's first author, this correlation shows 'something is happening beneath the surface' long before full-fledged MS is diagnosed.
The central issue is, however, that these early signs 'can be easily mistaken for other conditions', according to Dr Helen Tremlett, professor of neurology at UBC's faculty.
That said, she believes the latest findings 'dramatically shift the timeline for when these early warning signs are thought to begin', and can possibly open the door to opportunities for earlier detection.
The study's organisers were also careful to emphasise that despite the findings of the study, not everyone who suffers from these long-term symptoms will go on to be diagnosed with MS.