Symptoms of Susac’s Syndrome

Symptoms and their severity can vary from person to person. In most cases, headaches (including migraine-like headaches) may be the first sign of the disease. Additional neurological symptoms, which may mimic MS, can include problems with walking, urinary dysfunction, muscle pain, slurred speech and cognitive issues such as memory loss, confusion and, potentially, dementia. Many patients also show psychiatric symptoms like behavior changes or paranoia.

BRAO can lead to the person noticing a “dark spot” in a portion of their vision, due to injury to the retina of the eye as a result of reduced blood flow. Some people with SuS also have ringing in the ears, dizziness or hearing loss ranging from mild to severe, which often appears as one of the first symptoms.

Susac’s Syndrome Pain

While SuS is not known as an extremely painful condition, muscle pain (myalgia) can be a symptom for some people. The first symptom to appear is often repeated headaches, sometimes severe enough to feel like migraines.