Historical texts reveal that she was affected by a debilitating disease, sharing many characteristics with multiple sclerosis, such as the age of onset, duration, and course of disease. Lidwina's disease began soon after her fall. From that time onward, she developed walking difficulties, headaches and violent pains in her teeth. By the age of 19, both her legs were paralyzed and her vision was disturbed. Over the next 34 years, Lidwina's condition slowly deteriorated, although with apparent periods of remission, until her death at the age of 52. Together these factors suggest that a posthumous diagnosis of multiple sclerosis may be plausible, therefore dating the disease back to the 14th century. However, Thomas John Murray disagrees, "[e]nthusiastic, exaggerated reports and myth building by those who revered her saintliness make interpretation of her condition difficult for the historian."Murray, T. Jock. Multiple Sclerosis: The History of a Disease, Demos Medical Publishing, 2004. , p. 25
