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Could it be MS?
by aparker221, Sep 07, 2009 09:25PM
I know this is ging to be a long post so I apologize ahead of time. Also I know that you can't tell with any certainty what is going on, but any advice would be appreciated. Finally I do have an appointment with a neurologist at the end of the month.
I am 29 years old with no major health problems; I have had 2 children. Earlier this year I was experiencing a band of pain across my shoulders with referred shoulder pain. This started in January or February. I also have a lot of neck pain/stiffness that I have had for long time that is generally manageable. Sometimes it causes tension headaches. I saw my PCP who prescribed me Flexeril and Ibuprofen. These did not help much, and I can only take small doses of Flexeril so I went back after a couple of weeks. In addition I was having this excruciating jaw pain that I thought was related to a tooth that I had filled several times due to irritated nerve. I ended up getting a cap placed on the tooth (very back upper molar, left side). After I saw my PCP again, she gave me a joint injection in my right shoulder (which was very, very tight) and she suggested I start going for medical massage and to physical therapy. I also had an MRI of my right shoulder (though both of them hurt, the right was worst than the left and I am right handed). The MRI was negative; the only thing noted was enlarged lymph nodes in my armpit of unknown significance. When my massage therapist would massage right around my scapula in the back, it would send horrible pains into the front of my shoulder and down my arm. In addition I was having muscular pain in my chest right in front of the back across my shoulders and pain down my arms during the day. The only thing that helped from physical therapy was the TENS unit and heated US massage. I honestly wished I had a TENS unit at home.
I did get some improvement from the joint injection after a week, and it lasted about 2 weeks after that. Massage was helping, too. I stopped physical therapy after 5 weeks because I wasn't getting much benefit out of the stretches despite doing them daily.
Next the nerve pain in my upper arms started. Then I started having tingling in my forearms and numbness in my hands. The numbness in my hands was on both sides and included mainly my pinky finger. This freaked me out! One night my hand went numb from the ring finger over and I didn't have full feeling for several hours. Also it was this week that I started feeling off balance. It was not vertigo or dizziness either (I know because I have had vertigo several years ago related to inner ear). It would simply feel like I was constantly moving towards the left. It happened walking down the large halls and also when I moved my head quickly to the side, down, or back. It would happen a few times a day. I went back to my PCP for returning shoulder pain (bilateral) and radiating upper arm pains that weren't responding to ice, ibuprofen, or massage), and she prescribed prednisone. This didn't help much.
One night I could not get my feeling back in my hand I went to the ER because I also had urinary symptoms. I ended up getting referred to a spine specialist (ortho) and diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (which I had only had once when I was pregnant).
At my first appointment with the ortho doc, he did x-rays and saw I had a bone spur on C4-C5 so it was possible I could have a herniated disc. I obviously didn't want to think about neck surgery, but maybe I was going to find out why my body didn't feel right. I also noticed I had been more tired lately and kept dropping papers at work all day. My body felt very heavy, and I felt lazy. I have muscle twitches randomly all over my body also.
I had the cervical MRI which was completely negative. Next I had an EMG and nerve conduction studies which were completely normal on my right arm so I requested to skip the left. This day I was having severe arm tingling so at least I knew I was tested on an appropriate day. I asked him what he thought I should do next and he said go to a neurologist. He commented that it could be some type of myofascial pain syndrome, which seemed weird to me since the shoulder pain was practically gone but the arm tingling and hand/finger numbness was getting worse.
I felt awful the rest of the week, but for the next 2 weeks I felt much better. Then it started getting worse again.
So I recently went back to my PCP. She did some neuro checks, ordered some labs and set up an appointment for me with neurologist. I feel like I'm just continuing to get worse. Sometimes I am getting the tingling in my legs now. It feels like what I think people with RLS have. The main numbness occurs in my middle through pinky finger tips (never thumb or first finger, although my hand cramps under my thumb as well as writer's cramp under my pinky) and on the top of both forearms. In addition I am extremely fatigued and nearly always off balance. I have fallen 3 times this month, which is extremely embarrassing. I have no idea how/why it is happening; it's just that the next thing I know I am landing on my hands/knees. Is it possible that these symptoms are MS? What else could possibly be going on? Do you think the shoulder pain was unrelated?
Also I have been having very severe headaches. They feel like tension headaches in the back of my head, but because they occur inside my eye, I thought they could be sinus headaches, too. They generally only occur on the left, right above the inside of my eye and go straight through to the back of my head. My eye hurts when I move it, but it is not sensitive to light when I have the headache. My left eye has been constantly spasming, which isn't anything new, but the other day everyone kept commenting to me that it looked swollen/droopy after a particularly bad day of it. When I take my contacts out at night it feels like there are dark spots when I am laying in bed. I have floaters and sometimes blurry vision in 1 eye, but I have had that for a few years. I don't think it has gotten worse. Do you think it could be optic neuritis? It feels more like a bad headache to me so I didn't even think about it until I became concerned about MS. I see my eye doctor on October 1 so I will definitely mention it to him.
Finally a couple of other things I have thought about recently include: the use of artificial sweeteners (mainly aspartame in Equal) so I stopped using it, which hasn't helped, and also I did get a Mirena (plastic IUD) placed in April and have read about patients having similar side effects (though I think my started BEFORE it was placed).
Thanks for all your time reading this and advice. I know the next step is a brain MRI, but I am absolutely miserable right now so I thought discussing it would help.
I am 29 years old with no major health problems; I have had 2 children. Earlier this year I was experiencing a band of pain across my shoulders with referred shoulder pain. This started in January or February. I also have a lot of neck pain/stiffness that I have had for long time that is generally manageable. Sometimes it causes tension headaches. I saw my PCP who prescribed me Flexeril and Ibuprofen. These did not help much, and I can only take small doses of Flexeril so I went back after a couple of weeks. In addition I was having this excruciating jaw pain that I thought was related to a tooth that I had filled several times due to irritated nerve. I ended up getting a cap placed on the tooth (very back upper molar, left side). After I saw my PCP again, she gave me a joint injection in my right shoulder (which was very, very tight) and she suggested I start going for medical massage and to physical therapy. I also had an MRI of my right shoulder (though both of them hurt, the right was worst than the left and I am right handed). The MRI was negative; the only thing noted was enlarged lymph nodes in my armpit of unknown significance. When my massage therapist would massage right around my scapula in the back, it would send horrible pains into the front of my shoulder and down my arm. In addition I was having muscular pain in my chest right in front of the back across my shoulders and pain down my arms during the day. The only thing that helped from physical therapy was the TENS unit and heated US massage. I honestly wished I had a TENS unit at home.
I did get some improvement from the joint injection after a week, and it lasted about 2 weeks after that. Massage was helping, too. I stopped physical therapy after 5 weeks because I wasn't getting much benefit out of the stretches despite doing them daily.
Next the nerve pain in my upper arms started. Then I started having tingling in my forearms and numbness in my hands. The numbness in my hands was on both sides and included mainly my pinky finger. This freaked me out! One night my hand went numb from the ring finger over and I didn't have full feeling for several hours. Also it was this week that I started feeling off balance. It was not vertigo or dizziness either (I know because I have had vertigo several years ago related to inner ear). It would simply feel like I was constantly moving towards the left. It happened walking down the large halls and also when I moved my head quickly to the side, down, or back. It would happen a few times a day. I went back to my PCP for returning shoulder pain (bilateral) and radiating upper arm pains that weren't responding to ice, ibuprofen, or massage), and she prescribed prednisone. This didn't help much.
One night I could not get my feeling back in my hand I went to the ER because I also had urinary symptoms. I ended up getting referred to a spine specialist (ortho) and diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (which I had only had once when I was pregnant).
At my first appointment with the ortho doc, he did x-rays and saw I had a bone spur on C4-C5 so it was possible I could have a herniated disc. I obviously didn't want to think about neck surgery, but maybe I was going to find out why my body didn't feel right. I also noticed I had been more tired lately and kept dropping papers at work all day. My body felt very heavy, and I felt lazy. I have muscle twitches randomly all over my body also.
I had the cervical MRI which was completely negative. Next I had an EMG and nerve conduction studies which were completely normal on my right arm so I requested to skip the left. This day I was having severe arm tingling so at least I knew I was tested on an appropriate day. I asked him what he thought I should do next and he said go to a neurologist. He commented that it could be some type of myofascial pain syndrome, which seemed weird to me since the shoulder pain was practically gone but the arm tingling and hand/finger numbness was getting worse.
I felt awful the rest of the week, but for the next 2 weeks I felt much better. Then it started getting worse again.
So I recently went back to my PCP. She did some neuro checks, ordered some labs and set up an appointment for me with neurologist. I feel like I'm just continuing to get worse. Sometimes I am getting the tingling in my legs now. It feels like what I think people with RLS have. The main numbness occurs in my middle through pinky finger tips (never thumb or first finger, although my hand cramps under my thumb as well as writer's cramp under my pinky) and on the top of both forearms. In addition I am extremely fatigued and nearly always off balance. I have fallen 3 times this month, which is extremely embarrassing. I have no idea how/why it is happening; it's just that the next thing I know I am landing on my hands/knees. Is it possible that these symptoms are MS? What else could possibly be going on? Do you think the shoulder pain was unrelated?
Also I have been having very severe headaches. They feel like tension headaches in the back of my head, but because they occur inside my eye, I thought they could be sinus headaches, too. They generally only occur on the left, right above the inside of my eye and go straight through to the back of my head. My eye hurts when I move it, but it is not sensitive to light when I have the headache. My left eye has been constantly spasming, which isn't anything new, but the other day everyone kept commenting to me that it looked swollen/droopy after a particularly bad day of it. When I take my contacts out at night it feels like there are dark spots when I am laying in bed. I have floaters and sometimes blurry vision in 1 eye, but I have had that for a few years. I don't think it has gotten worse. Do you think it could be optic neuritis? It feels more like a bad headache to me so I didn't even think about it until I became concerned about MS. I see my eye doctor on October 1 so I will definitely mention it to him.
Finally a couple of other things I have thought about recently include: the use of artificial sweeteners (mainly aspartame in Equal) so I stopped using it, which hasn't helped, and also I did get a Mirena (plastic IUD) placed in April and have read about patients having similar side effects (though I think my started BEFORE it was placed).
Thanks for all your time reading this and advice. I know the next step is a brain MRI, but I am absolutely miserable right now so I thought discussing it would help.
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I'm afraid I can't be of any help to you but I think for you're MS inquire's theres a forum for MS and I'm sure they can answer alot of you're questions there.
just look to the RIGHT of this screen there's a column marked EXPERT RELATED FORUMS and scroll under that and you will find the MS group..they are very active over there.
good luck to you and I sure hope someone soon will give you some answers