Revisit?

[kdvd]

I had an episode with progressive tingling, itching and numbness in my left leg and both feet almost two months ago. I had an MRI and discovered a transverse lesion on my spinal cord at T11. I was not diagnosed with MS due to only one episode and one lesion.
The past few days I have been experiencing slight numbness and tingling in my hands and also a strange pain in my lower back. It feels more like it is just on the skin level. If you run your hand over the area softly it is very painful, if you press in the the area there is no pain. This is similar to how the symptoms in my legs started. Do you think these symptoms are related?

[doublevision1]

I would think it is POSSIBLE that these symptoms are related.  MS sensory symptoms are so diverse in terms of location, of how they are perceived to feel (ranging from burning, numbness, dullness, itching, tingling, pins and needles, stabbing senations, stiffness, squeezing, among a whole host of others).  Speaking from personal experience I have had all of these sensations at different times in different parts of my body.  These all appear to be due to my MS.

I think I have something similar to what you describe happens in your lower back, meaning pain on the skin level.  I have this on the underside of my lower arms, more often on the RT but sometimes L as well.  It sometimes creeps over to the top of my RT hand.  A gentle stroke of my husband's hand, or a gentle kiss from my dog, is painful; it feels like the skin is raw (but it looks normal), kind of like it's super tender from an abrasion.  Perhaps for me, a better description of the sensation is "disturbing" rather than truly painful.  Disturbing in the sense that it feels "icky" - it makes me feel slightly nauseous when these hypersensitive areas are touched.  Some days I even find long sleeves to be unconfortable.  However I can apply pressure by firmly squeezing the area, and this temporarily relieves the sensation.  I also find a mild temp bath provides temporary relief, just the sensation of having the tender area submerged in water helps.  For me, I guess either applying pressure or submerging in water provides a sensory distraction to the nerves responsible for the altered sensations?

The overall connection seems to be malfunctioning of the CNS, which is playing itself out differently in all of us.  There are just so many variable symptoms given the complexity of the CNS itself; and, the complexity and variability of how MS works its magic throughout each of us differently.

I guess one of the reasons MS can be so difficult to dx is that these symptoms can also be common in a whole host of other conditions.

My 2 cents!

db1
(MS dx - Nov 2007)