I am not stupid. I have MS.

The effects of MS are many and varied, in fact, as individual as people are ... so too are the symptoms and manifestations of MS. I doubt whether any 2 MS sufferers have identical aches, pains, symptoms or relapses. This is not really that difficult to understand, since we all have a similar biology but, and this is the crucial point, we do not have the identical biology. Allow me to elaborate a little on this.

We all have different abilities and endurances, flexibilities and limitations. If we did not have these then we would all look, speak, move and think like each other. Frankly, I love my individuality. But one has to take the good with the bad, and on occasion my particular MS symtoms do affect my speech and hearing. It took me a while to discover the hearing problem, especially as we are nowadays so surrounded by sound, but once I had determined that there clearly was an issue with my hearing, it seems to behave more erratic than any other symptom.

The problem with hearingis manifold. In the first instance, you need to separate genuione sound from noise. I often find that this is easily accomplished by blocking out human speech, most of which is noise without form or content. This is futher aggravated by a tendency for many people to mumble their way through life while expecting you to interpret the mumble and refashoin it into something intelligible for their sake. I now refuse to do this! But my refusal has had some knock-on effects. Due to my lack of response, and my response on occasion not pertaining to the conversation, I am now considered to be stupid.

Generally, people will not say this to your face ... instead, they will slow down their speech and accompany this with elaborate gestures. The strange thing, though, is still the presence of relentless nonsensical noise emanating from the lower half of their faces, and still does not assist in any form of understanding.

One a biological level, I know I am not going deaf, simply because I have good days and bad days. Although I am male and therefore biologically inclined towards selective hearing, it is still not intentional selective hearing. What happens is this:
Sound enters your ear after being guided there by the lettuce-like outgrowths on the side of the head. This sound is then picked up by the tympanic membrane and the bones of the ear. Finally it is converted into an electrical impulse that is transmittedd along nerves to your brain, where it is analysed, processed and (if you are male) discarded or (if you are female) filed. Obviously the whole process it much more complex, but the point is that it involves impulses being transmitted along a nerve that may resemble a dirt track as opposed to a freshly laid motorway. Hence the hearing difficulty.

Thus in conclusion, a hearing difficulty may lead to an impression being formed that you are somewhat less than able to use your mental faculties.

It must be said that being regarded as stupid has had some rather funny paybacks, and I am now inclined to explore this avenue more in depth.