What Do My Eyes Reveal About My Multiple Sclerosis?

What Do My Eyes Reveal About My Multiple Sclerosis? (0:59)

Multiple sclerosis affects the optic nerve in 85% of patients, even if there's no change in vision, says neurologist Charles Smith, MD. A simple test measures conduction of energy in the optic nerve.

Read Transcript

Well many people with MS have involvement of the optic nerves. Although a person may have no visual symptoms, there's a test that we do. It's called a visual evoked response, where we actually measure conduction of energy in the optic nerve. It's a simple test. It takes two minutes to do. About 85% of patients with MS will have positive test results, but maybe only a much small number will have symptoms.

About half the patients or so will at some point in their life develop visual symptom, but not as many as we see on the testing that really measures conduction. Again silent lesions, like we see in the brain.