MS? Many symptoms in quick succession

[Jim_1971]

Hi - looking for some advice please: I had 2 bouts of balance disorder during the summer.  These were diagnosed as Vestibular Neuritis.  On the second occasion, about two weeks after the balance issues re-started in hell seemed to break loose and I started to experience:

Back pain
Pins and needles in arms and legs
Numbness - e.g fingers and feet, fingers feel like I burned them on an iron a few days ago
burning sensation in certain areas - e.g. Left thigh
Twitching muscles on arms and legs (feels like this is happening on my back as well)
Fatigue
Initially I also had sore glands around the throat and a sensation of pressure/fullness in the ears
Intermittent feeling of being off balance
Stiffness in legs
Feel slower mentally
Neck pain

I am concerned about MS and have visited my General Practitionet several times over the past few weeks. He ascribes the symptoms to anxiety.
I insisted on a Neuro referral 2 weeks ago  - Neuro exam was fine.  Had a brain MRI - didn't show anything unusual. Didn't have spinal MRI (unsure why).  Got the impression that the Neuro thought I was a bit of a time-waster.

This sounds like MS to me, but I can't believe the number of symptoms.

Does anyone have any thoughts please?

Thanks, Jim

[Jim_1971]

Yes, I had bloods for various things, Lyme, Vit B12, Vit D etc but came back with nothing.  Still suffering with some of the symptoms listed above but just trying to get on with things at the moment - after full clear MRIs of Brain and Neck/Spine Neuro has effectively washed his hands of me.

[Jim_1971]

Thanks to both for replies.
I just had a full spine/neck MRI this week which didn't show anything untoward.

[aspen2]

It's very frustrating when we don't have answers, isn't it?  It could be something autoimmune -- have you had all the appropriate bloodwork done?

[supermum_ms]

Hi and welcome,

I definitely wouldn't of thought of a neurological condition like MS, your symptoms are too wide spread, in all peripherals, way too short a time frame for MS to cause that many symptoms in one attack, your glands were also swollen and ears felt full. Your neurological exam wasn't abnormal and your brain MRI wasn't abnormal, with nothing to diagnostically suggest the symptoms you've experienced could be neurological, conditions like MS are very low on the list of possible causes.

The absence of any neurologically abnormal (brain or spinal) clinical signs, wouldn't be suggestive of a spinal explanation for your symptoms, a spinal MRI would be hard to justify if you don't have anything neurologically abnormal showing up in your exam.  Keep in mind that symptoms can be caused by many non neurological related condition, one possible explanation is actually mental health and if you feel that is a possibility, please consider getting your mental health assessed by a psychologist or psychiatrist.

Cheers.......JJ

ps i have requested the removal of the block of space in kyles above post, not sure how that happened....    


  

[kwarendorf]

Hi Jim - Welcome to the group.

What you describe does not sound like MS to me. I'm not a doc though. MS does not typically cause all over body symptoms like numbness in your fingers and feet. It would more likely cause numbness in a foot or the fingers of one hand.

MS attacks individual locations in the central nervous system. Only areas of the body controlled by info sent along the damaged path will be impacted.

Kyle