KEVIN McHugh believes a breath test would have spared him around a decade of fruitless tests and misdiagnosis.
The tour operator, from Cramond in Edinburgh, had been having treatment for gastrointestinal problems when a chance visit to an opticians in the capital in 2017 finally led to the discovery of his MS.
READ MORE: Scientists begin work on study to develop an MS breath test
Mr McHugh, 39, said: "I was having problems with my eye. I kept waking up in the morning feeling like I had a bit of sleep in my eye, but I had this for about a week.
"Finally I went to one of the opticians in George Street in Edinburgh and by a pure fluke it was the girl's first day in the job - I think I was her first patient.
"She was looking at my eye and said 'there's something wrong - I think you should go to the hospital'.
"She said there was some swelling behind the eye.
"Me and my wife went up to the hospital that day and they did an emergency CT scan and an MRI scan, and sent us on our way.
"I had an appointment at the Royal Infirmary a couple of days later with the stomach specialist I had been seeing for years.
"I told him all the trouble I'd been having, because I'd also been getting these splitting headaches as well as the problem with my eye, and I told him that the doctors thought it might be a brain tumour.
"He said 'well, the good news is you don't have a tumour - you have MS'."
READ MORE: MS patient moves 200 miles from Highlands for disability-friendly flat
Mr McHugh has the more common form - relapsing-remitting MS - and now receives monthly infusions of the drug Tysabri to help keep his symptoms under control.
He said: "Up until recently I was taking so many different pills and tablets that when I walked I rattled. It was nuts.
"If this breath test had been available ten years ago it would have changed my life. My MS would have been picked up sooner and I might have started disease-modifying drugs sooner.
"I spent over a decade getting every test under the sun in search of other illnesses before finally being diagnosed with MS.
"Needless to say, a test like this could have seen me diagnosed years earlier and started on a treatment that would ultimately have seen me experience fewer relapses and slow progression of the condition.
"It would be great to see something like this make progress as it could potentially help others avoid having to go through the same thing as me.”
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