DOES MS CAUSE SLEEP PROBLEMS?
Every night MS patients like Glenn lie awake, suffering in silence. Beyond the stress of battling a potentially crippling disease, MS involves physical symptoms such as numbness, muscle spasms, and debilitating pain that can make sleep nearly impossible. Beyond the physical symptoms of the disease, six percent of MS patients have a diagnosable sleep disorder. Some suffer from involuntary twitches and kicking, called sleep-related movement disorder. Others require frequent trips to the bathroom (nocturia) or have ongoing ringing in the ear (tinnitus).It’s like an alarm clock that you can’t turn off, Glenn says of his tinnitus. You can disregard it during the day with the ambient noise and distractions. But at night, when you try to lie quiet and still, it’s impossible to ignore. Along with the numbness and pain, the constant ringing makes sleep really difficult. Glenn uses a white noise machine at night to distract him from the tinnitus, but a full night of rest is still rare.Among vete
