My visit with the Rheumatologist

[luvnGod]

Hi Everyone, I pray you are all well.  I wanted to update and ask a couple of questions.  

I went for my first visit with the rheumatologist today and I really liked him.  He was very understanding and actually acknowledged that I was hurting and this stuff was real.  I gave him a timeline/history that I've been compiling, which I recommend to everyone to do...he really appreciated it and it helped me share symptoms that I had forgotten about in the past.  Upon reading my timeline/history he said his first thought was MS but since my MRI's came back negative I was okay there and that's why the neuro sent me to see him instead.  SO, he did a physical exam and said many of my symptoms fit with a fibromyalgia diagnosis, but not all.  He said normally he sees many more "trigger or tender spots".  He ordered blood work (which I don't think was necessarily ruling out MS mimcs...it's like that's been given up on due to lack of evidence on MRI) and said that if blood work comes back normal...no immune system involvement....then he would feel more confident in a Fibro diagnosis.  He said it was also possible I could be dealing with Fibro as well as something else.

Question:  Have any of you experienced this where you feel strongly MS and get diagnosed Fibro?
                  Do any of you have both MS and Fibro?

Thank you ahead of time for your responses.  Love and prayers
Stacie

[luvnGod]

nevermind found it in the health pages...DUH!  SORRY!!

[luvnGod]

and anyone specifically know what ANA is testing for?

[luvnGod]

Thank you both for your responses.  I have read over the health pages talking about testing, but I will definitely revisit and reread.  I wish I would've spoke up when he said he was going to do some bloodwork and ask to specifically test for MS mimcs.  I did see he wrote down ANA and a fwe other things.  But I think it was the usual CBC, I think he's checking thyroid as well.  

He did tell me it could be fibro, but he said usually he has someone complain of the overall pain like you said Karen99.  I have had that in the past that felt like the flu but I didn't have the flu.  My biggest complaint lately has been numbness, pins and needles and muscle stiffness and weakness.  He said perceived numbness and tingling as well as other strange sensations could be associated with fibro.  I started neurotin last night.  Felt a bit strange upon waking that last several hours this morning.  Very tired and stumbling all over the place and my left leg (as usual) stiff and tingling/numb.  Anyone else take neurotin for fibro or MS?

Thank you!
Stacie

[Sumanadevii]

I just know that Fibro can be very painful.  I believe MS can match it.  The difference is maybe that MS can do permanent damage.  I do know that both are accepted by SSDI as a disability due to fatigue and pain.

And like so many here have said, SSDI can take forever or be there in a few months....for either disease.

[Karen99]

My diagnosis went like this: drug induced arthralgia's/myalgia's from Lexaquin.  Then Fibromyalgia.  A year later MS.

During the time I was seeing a rheumatologist for outrageous fatigue and pain, I questioned whether or not I might have MS.  I was having headaches that I never had before.  I felt as though my eyeballs and breath were fireballs like a dragon.   I felt a weariness that unsettled me to my core.  I got some strange looks when I described my symptoms.  To the doctors my complaints were vague.  It makes me laugh now,  but how is a doctor supposed to react when their patients says they feel as though their head is like a dragon.  :-)   I smelled an odor like bleach.  I had enough trigger points for Fibro.

Yes, I am diagnosed with both Fibromyalgia and MS.  It's a double whammy for fatigue.  I have pain but it's more entire body pain like when you have the flu.  No neuropathy pain as seen in MS. (not now anyway).  No obvious spasticity, but I feel it.  Like everything else, I feel it before it can be seen.  

Not to diminish the awfulness of Fibro but my first MS attack was a whopper.  Knocked me clean out of my socks.  Made Fibro look like a walk in the park.  Took a full year to recover.  That was 10 years ago.  No flare since and have just a few new brain lesions.  I have one small healed cervical neck lesion.  At this point in time my biggest complaint is fatigue and pain.  MS or Fibro?  I don't really know.  

Don't know if that helps or not.  One very good neurologist told me that he has observed that patients with both Fibro and MS tend to have a milder course of MS.  

My rheumy did rule out other diseases/syndromes during my time with her.  Many of those were the MS mimics.  She was surprised that I was eventually diagnosed with MS.

Have you read the Health Page on the MS mimics and what types of tests you can expect?  There's a lot of standard testing they do to rule out other causes.