Benjamin Greenberg, MD – UT Southwestern:
We get asked all the time whether or not there is a link between changes in weather and the environment and how our patients do with NMO. And there’s two parts of the answer. The first is that our patients are definitely susceptible to different symptoms with various weathers and environmental conditions. It’s not unusual for our patients to come in on a hot July day and tell us that they are re-experiencing old symptoms such as loss of vision, loss of sensation, or difficulty with walking. But these symptoms are always related to prior events they had as part of their disease. What’s reassuring is the weather and environment changes do not change the risk of a relapse of NMO, meaning the weather changes in environment do not lead to an increased risk of new inflammation.