Trigeminal Neuralgia and lyme?

[skarey]

For the past several days I've been suffering from horrible pain on the left side of face.  It woke me up several nights ago with a sharp stabbing pain behind my ear and it ran down my jaw line.  It's still there and comes and goes.  It usually hits suddenly and is very painful...  I'm also having pain around my eye and cheek bone occasionally too.  

When researching what this is, it fits the description of Trigeminal Neuralgia.  Bit concerned cause it says this is symptom of MS.  I swear when I get the worries of MS out of my head another symptom pops up and makes me worry again.  

Does anyone else get this?  Can lyme do this?

Thanks.

[skarey]

Thank you Patsy.  That eases my mind a bit.  I don't have total numbness, and actually the tingling, pins and needles, and burning sensations are the least of my worries and don't happen to often.  I'd say my most bothersome frequent symptoms are the dizziness, weakness (not true weakness as you say, I don't think cause I still have strength, but it just feels really heavy, and tired), and pain.  I get all sorts of pain..  I have read how MS is hard to diagnose, and I'm so worried I'm one of them.  

Thanks for your helpful words.

[patsy10]

I used to get those symptoms.  I know how you feel and how scary it all is.  I literally saw 6 neurologists because I was sure I had MS.   All of them said no based on NORMAL test results.  I did have evoked potentials and a spinal tap.  I guess I wasn't convinced until I saw an MS specialist.

If you have normal tests and your symptoms are mostly sensory,  meaning numb feelings (but not true loss of sensation), tingling, pain etc, and not motor (true limb weakness or paralysis)...then it is not likely MS based on my experience and what the neuro's told me.  You have probably read stories on the net about how hard MS is to diagnose.  This is a rarety.  All of the doctors I saw said it shows up as lesions on MRI readily.  I was told the difficult cases to diagnose are very rare.

[skarey]

Patsy,
  Do you get the ear/jaw pain also?  I am still worried about MS...Boths sets of MRI's have been normal, but they never did do a spinal tap or evoked potentials.  They said it wasn't needed.  Do you think I should get re evaluated?

[patsy10]

Lyme can do this.  I felt the same way you do about the MS symptoms...you start to forget about it and then another MS-like symptom pops up.  I have learned to let it go.  It's scary but I try to keep reminding myself that all my tests were normal several times.