Hi, and another welcome to the forum. I actually had a whole long, entire answer written out to you and sent it into cyberspace. I'm sorry you are suffering so much and feel so afraid and in the dark about your worsening symptoms. Many of us can relate.
I am frustrated that my long post got lost. I will tell you that it said MANY of the same things that Wonko did. But, to relieve my frustration I am going to reproduce it anyway, even though she said much of the same stuff.
First no one can diagnose anything online. I was not a neurologist, but I will give you my best evaluation of what you have told us. I will have a lot of questions, bacausde I see a bunch of stuff that is missing.
First you need to know that MS is a diagnosis of exclusion. You MUST rule out the various things that mimic MS, before you come to this diagnosis. Lyme is a great mimicker of MS. You already have had positive testing for Lyme and that appears to be from 09/08. This is a huge piece of information. So I can assume that your treatment for Lyme was short - a few months at most. The treatment of Lyme disease is an area of great controversy. In traditional medicine the wisdom is that three weeks of treament is sufficient for almost all cases. the people who specialize in Lyme feel that this should be much longer - a year or more for cases that have neurological involvement. Who treated your Lyme, with what and for how long? I, like Wonko, have an immediate gut feeling that you have inadequately treated NeuroLyme Disease.
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Now let's look at your symptoms. Pain, weakness, spasms, urinary problems, visual problems and headache can be seen in both diseases. You sound like your entire course has been continuous - not coming in attacks and remssions. The pattern of symptoms is not typical either for the Primary Progressive form - so your symptom pattern appears to be unusual for MS. this does not rule out MS, but lowers it on the list of suspicion.
However, all of the things you suffer from can and are seen regularly in Lyme Disease.
Optic Neuritis is seen in both diseases. In Lyme it is seen when the spirochete invades the central nervous system.
Swollen lymph nodes are seen mostly in infections and some cancers. They are not part of MS. They could be leftovers from the EBV infection a year ago or from Lyme or another infection. A prior bout of mononucleosis (not just an infection with EBV) is very often seen with MS. Did you have actual "mono?"
Raynauds is most often associated with an autoimmune, inflammatory disease considered in the Rheumatological diseases. It is not especially associated with MS, but many of us with MS here on the forum have it. It can also be seen by itself in healthy people. I do not know if it has any association with Lyme disease.
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If we look at the various testing you have had done we get a stronger sense of what the basic problem might be.
The positive EMG refers to damage within a muscle that can be from direct muscle damage or from damage to the moter nerve supplying it. The EMG is usually done along with a Nerve Conduction Study. Did you have this too? When either of these tests is positive, you are looking at damage within the nerves that are out in the body; that have left the spinal canal. This is called the Peripheral Nervous System. The Lyme spirochete has a special tendency to attack the peripheral nerves. So that test being positive points toward something other than MS. Lyme is a good candidate, but there are others.
The positive SSEP is indeed seen in MS and other diseases of demyelination in the Central Nervous System - the CNS. The CNS is made up of the brain, the brainstem and the spinal cord. It indicates an area along a sensaory nerve (a nerve that carries information about sensation from the body to the brain). This is evidence that would weigh in with both MS and Lyme (or others diseases). When Lyme disease invades the CNS you can get a positive SSEP.
When you say L arm reflexes are not working I assume you mean there is no reflex when it is tapped. This is more typical of a peripheral nerve disease like Lyme or others (like Chronic Inflammatory Demeylinating Polyneuropathy). It can happen in MS, but is much less usual. As I said before Lyme really, really likes the peripheral nervous system.
Having an infection immediately prior to the onset of symptoms is something we very often see in MS. The immune stimulation of an infection can precipitate both the onset of MS and an acute relapse. Note that the infection itself doesn't directly casue MS. Some infections can supress the immune system's ability to fend off other infections. Influenza is one of those infections, so the flu could be imagined to allow a quiet Lyme infection to act up. I don't think this one helps us.
You had a spinal tap that showed normal pressure. Is that all they tested for???? With so many neurological symptoms I would expect the fluid to be sent for the whole gamut of things, cell count, protein, glucose, cultures, MS Panel, Lyme markers, etc. Do you know if other things were tested? I think you should get the complete results in hard copy.
You had eye testing. Did they consider optic neuritis? Did they do a VEP - Visual Evoked Response or Visual Field testing or color testing? Optic neuritis can and does occur in MS and in Lyme disease when the CNS has been invaded.
The negative MRIs drop MS downward in supicion, but only if they were done on a high power MRI machine (especially the spine). Low power machines can not pick up many smaller MS lesions. So, depending, that test points generally away from MS.
Have they ruled out a disc problem in your neck? that could cause much of what you are experiencing.
So, looking at the symptoms, findings and test results points far more strongly at an inadequately treated Lyme disease with Invasion of the CNS than it does to MS. This isn't to say that someone with MS can get infected with Lyme. You have only soft indicators pointing toward MS, though.
Have you been seen by an Infectious Disease specialist? I think this would be important. It would be great if this doctor also regularly treated Lyme patients. These docs can be hard to find. We have a Lyme Forum and Wonko invited you. I think a visit there would be most enlightening. It is true that some people in the Lyme world have some unusual notions, but there are good, smart people over there who can help.
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Now the final thing is the severe pain you are having. While you are making your way through the diagnostic stuff and such, someone should be aggressively attacking the problem of this severe pain. Nerve pain does not respond to the regular pain relievers, nor very well to narcotics. I invite you to read two essays written by a pain management doc for us. You can click on the two links below
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Multiple%20Sclerosis/Nerve-Neuropathic-Pain---A-Primer/show/371?cid=36
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Multiple%20Sclerosis/General-Principles-of-Treating-Neuropathic-Nerve-Pain/show/452?cid=36
I hope we can all help sort this out with you. Please check out the Lyme Forum and stay here, too, if you want.
I'm looking forward to the answers to my questions.
Quix