Tingling/vision problems -- how should I approach my doctor?

  I've had troubling symptoms for about three years now, and I don't know whether or not they're related. The most persistent is a continuous pins and needles feeling on the right side of my face, especially on my ear lobe and part of my cheek, sometimes increasing to include the area around my right eye and along my jaw. My ear is pretty constant; occasionally I go for a few days with the same feeling on half my tongue and sometimes my lip. This does not interfere with my life, but it is annoying. Separately, I've had tingling of my right foot and right hand, a feeling of heaviness when I climb stairs or lift my arm -- this may have started at the time that I did a lot of carrying of my baby in a backpack, but I'm not sure. As well, for three months or so last fall I had very troublesome memory problems -- could not remember to pick my children up at school on some days, turn off the stove, and I had difficulty finding the right words. This has greatly improved over the months but was frightening to me and annoying to my friends at the time. This past spring I had eye problems -- trouble focussing, blurring, a persistent grey spot in the middle of my right eye that bothered me most when I was reading (which I usually do on my back in the bathtub), and a feeling of achiness and numbness around my eye. This recurred for a couple of months this summer (still present) and now I remember goint to an opthamologist for this in 1994 --  but after it had passed. As well, I have very severe fatigue, which is not like me at all. I've seen my doctor several times for this over the past couple of years and she sent me for a CT scan during my memory problems, but it was clear. During a pregnancy, I asked to be referred to a psychiatrist for depression, and he did not think that my symptoms were psychiatric, though he agreed I was suffering from depression, and he asked my doctor to send me for an MRI (hard to get here). I waited several months for this, then went to see my doctor and the letter had been left in my file, no MRI request. Finally, she sent me to a nearby neurologist for an EMG, but after asking me about my memory problems and depression he did not give me an EMG and did not refer me for an MRI. When he summarized his reasons to me, he said that he was not concerned because my tingly feelings seemed to flit around, come and go, and if they were a problem they would stay in one place. He said I should not worry about MS. That surprised me as I was thinking it was a disk problem or something. However, I felt quite agonized as he had completely misunderstood me -- my pins and needles have gone away at times, but they also stay for weeks and months at a time, with flushes of stronger feelings. We had a language problem (he comes from another country) and I had thought I was going to get an objective test, and so I did not want to appear like a hypochondriac by being alarming about my symptoms. Since then, I have started to read messages in these forums and realize that my symptoms could be MS or many other not very serious things, but I don't want to go back to my doctor because I feel embarrassed. I've known my doctor for 15 years, have had almost no health problems until now, and like her a lot but she is very busy. She does not know about my eyes because I never told her, thought that was just my getting older (I'm 37). What do you think about my symptoms, and how should I approach my doctor? Sorry this has been so long!
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The symptoms you describe could be associated with any number of neurological
disorders, MS is part of the list simply because it affects any part of the
central nervous system.
In order to get your doctor's attention, it is better to focus on
a small number of fairly clear cut physical symptoms in detail, initially,
as a large number of vague, subjective symptoms can sometimes cause a suspicion that
a disorder is purely psychological and your problem is not given the consideration it deserves.
In your case I would concentrate on the facial numbness,visual problems and fatigue.
these are the symptoms you should elaborate on in detail especially as the numbness and visual
symptoms are the easiest to localize in the nervous system.
I suspect an MRI rather than an EMG would be the most appropriate test and you /
should request this directly.
Try to put your symptoms down on paper in a logical order, to prevent any
misunderstandings about duration of symptoms etc.
Since most of the diagnostic clues in a consultation come form the
information you supply yourself the better you present this the more
likely you are to have a satisfactory consultation.
I hope this has been of some help, and wish you luck.