Do you think this could be MS?

[jonesbee]

I woke up one morning in early july extremely fatigued and weak just out of the blue. I had a full 8 hours of sleep but couldn't pull myself out of bed. My husband watched our 2 kids and I went back to bed for 2 hours. Husband woke me up and had to help me to the bath. Leaning on the wall and then on him to make it happen. Water helped muscles relax a bit but became up comfortable about 10 to 15 minutes in. The next week or so was like this : If my husband was working a was doing bare minimum. No wash, laundry, outdoor activities and so forth. I had labs run and blood work came back fairly normal. Increased SED and C reactive protein slightly elevated - nothing concerning or alarming.

The month was fatigue, tightness, weakness and pain.
I thought I was starting to feel better. Still fatigued but muscles not so ridged.
In August I had an Ocular migraine _ streaks in vision followed by jumbled speech and frustration of not saying what i wanted. It was hard to drink - felt like i was drowning. All took place within a few hours.

One week later  I had weird bursts of pain like zaps down both arms (2x about 10 mins apart) followed by burning ant crawling sensation. The next day I stood up into my sister's head and got a concussion. Headache that progressed over about 5 hours and sensitive to light. Walking like a sailor and unable to do much. Took meds and inclined bed. No lingering symptoms in the morning. I didnt hit heads hard.

Other things to know - legs heavy sensation. Tingling in arms and legs. Numb arms in the mornings both sides. Changes between fingers and which side of my forearm is hurting/ weird sensation. Arch of foot has a ripping sensation like I pulled something. On and off - usually last only a few seconds. Where neck and back connect it is VERY sensitive to light touch. Like nails on a chalk board. Vision has black spots and is blurry here and there. Double vision when I am focusing on something close. Not all the time though.  Extreme tightness from back (about where a bra would be) through to the front a few fingers below where the ribs connect. It has happened a few times. Usually waking me up in the night but this last time was during the evening. Lasting 2 plus hours and I am unable to focus on anything else.

Went to see a neurologist after the migraine and concussion and was told that basic neuro exam looked ok. The resident and DR were not in agreement on this however. Yet both agreed one eye seemed to jump a bit and my reflexes where hyper. I was ordered an MRI brain w and w/o contrast that took over a month to finally get bc DR wanted to wait to do a C spine too but then wouldnt follow through with insurance.

Brain MRI didnt show any major problem and no notable lesion's.
It has been 2 weeks since that was done and I am looking for advise and direction. It appears that C spine might not be done at all. I am beyond frustrated with this and my muscles are still reminding me that something is definitely not right - regardless of test results.

Any help would be appreciated!

[supermum_ms]

Hi and welcome,

Q: "Do you think this is MS?"
A: The likelihood that what you are experiencing is a neurological condition like MS is very unlikely if your brain MRI wasn't abnormal and the types of symptoms experienced are not usually suggestive-consistent.

To be honest you might be inadvertently putting  different medical situations together when you wouldn't if not for you already dealing with the other issues.

You  genuinely might not be dealing with one medical condition and because you are trying to work out a single condition that causes everything you have experienced you'll sometimes be assuming more meaning than you'd normally do to make your issues fit eg your visual issues:

"Vision has black spots and is blurry here and there. Double vision when I am focusing on something close. Not all the time though"

The visual issues you describe are typically unrelated to a neurological condition like MS, these types of visual issues are more situation specific and associated with things like Convergence Insufficiency disorder, which is a visual condition in which your eyes are unable to work together when looking at close objects, causing one eye to turn outward instead of inward with the other eye creating double or blurred vision.

Keep in mind though that double vision can also be caused by fatigue, dry eye, medications etc etc so if you haven't had your vision and the health of your eyes assessed yet it would probably be a good idea to do so and if there is something more going on, what you get diagnosed with will also help narrow down potential medical conditions and give you some directions to consider.

Hope that helps.......JJ