MS or ADEM?

[santana8]

I have been stuck between diagnosis's for two years now. It's either ADEM or MS. Is anyone else in this situation? Would love to have someone to talk to who can compare info with me.Or anyone else who wants to talk. I have been doing research on this for two years and I've learned a lot that maybe I could help someone else. Also anyone who has experienced vision disturbances and  visual field defects as I have.

[Quixotic1]

Hi, Welcome to the forum!  You certainly have a difficult situation, as I have read much about ADEM and MS and they can certainly appear the same.  I need to ask you a favor though.  I would love to be able to read your story, but I and several other have trouble reading long, unbroken paragraphs.

We have difficulty with eye tracking and cannot keep out place without the "white space" that paragraphs with dobuble spacing in between gives us.  I tried to read what you wrtoe bute my eyes just kept dancing around.

Would you repost it with some breaks? You could cut and paste it to a new post here in this thread and then put in the Hard Returns (ENTERS) where you begin new topics.

If you could do this I would appreciate it.  I am the local, unofficial physician here.  We have had a couple people caught between these diagnoses.  Good to see you.

Quix, MD

[santana8]

It all started one day in April 2006. I was standing in a store looking at prices on chicken. all of a sudden I couldn't figure out what I was looking at, I mean my vision became really confused. I had my son with me who was 5 at the time,so I left the store and tried to drive home. On the way home the sky seemed to be clashing with the road, contrast problems. I made it home and the next day I thought that my sons eyes weren't straight in line with eachother.They looked crooked. His dad assured me that they were normal. Then the next day everyones face looked wider like it was stretched out on the right side. I started to suspect a medication change that I had had six weeks prior to this. I had been on the SSRI antidepressant Zoloft for 14 years for clinical depression and anxiety disorder. The Zoloft worked well and I had not had any depression in ten years. The anxiety and panic attacks were never fully controlled by the Zoloft. So My primary care doctor put me on a low dose of xanax .23mg once a day at bedtime. THis worked perfectly with the Zoloft, but they wanted me to go to a phyciatric clinic to get the xanax since it is a controled substance, eventhough it was a low dose. So I went to this new doctor who immediatley had a  problem with the xanax and said my Zoloft must not be working anymore.I dissagreed with him, but he kept insisting that Paxil would be better at controlling both the depression and axiety.So he told me to stop the Zoloft and the xanax that day without a taper and start the paroxetine(generic  Paxil) the next day.This switch was six weeks before this happened to me in the store, so called this doctor to tell him of these strange symptoms I was experiencing with my vision and his reply was that it is unheard of after six weeks on this medicine and he raised the dose of the paroxetine from 30mg to 40mg. I never made it to the pharmacy to fill it. Over the next two weeks I got sicker by the day. Sevier depression, sevier anxiety ,confussion, back pain, shooting leg pain, vomiting,diareah,total loss of appitite,rapid wieght loss(40pounds) in three weeks flashing and flickering of lights, intolorence of any light inside or outside. went to first ER and had a CT scan that was normal,sent home continued to get worse went to second ER complaining of blurred vison and extreme light sensitivity and confusion. Hand cuffed and took by police officer's car to phyciatric hospital. they thought I was crazy and making it all up.Got out after a week and still couldn't see. Went to six eye doctors before one of them finally gave me a visual field test after he told me he thought I was making this up because my VA was 20/20.The test came back with a left quadrant visual field defect. He said there is something here, you may have had a stroke. I said no kidding I told you I couldn't see.Anyway he sent me to my first neuro six months after the onset. First neuro done MRI which showed multiple white matter lesions in my brain. He also done a VEP(visual evoked potential) which shoed diffused slowing. He said with just these two test I had MS. and sent me out of his office with a bag of rebiff. I asked him how he knew this wasn't infecion. He said that's why we done the bloodwork. I said you didn't do any bloodwork. he said we didn't. He didn't even know if it had been done or not. So I left and waited three weeks to get another opinion. THe second Neuro and the one I am still seeing today two years later, done bloodwork, which was all normal, spinal tap,which was normal(no oblonical banding) polyemerce chain reaction test which checks for viral and bacteria in (CSF) it was negative too. Have had MRI every six months for the last two years all showing no new lessions. All of my lesions are the same age meaning one attack. Haven't had any new symptoms Just nerve damage from the first attack. vision is some better but I still have a visual field defect thatprevents me from driving. From what my Neuro says one attack is ADEM,more than one attack in space and time and a different area of th CNS is MS. The sad thing is if they had believed me I could have been given steriods which may have lessened the sevierity of the damage, but by the time I got to the neuro the accute phase had passed and it was too late for the steriods to do any good. sorry this is so long but wanted to give you all the details of the last two years that have been so crazy to live through.

[Heather3418]

Hi there!  Many of us have dealt with visual problems in the course of being diagnosed and many of us that are not yet been diagnosed.

Perhaps you can share with us, the other symptoms that you have been having that are making some of your doctor's think that you have MS.  And of course, why the other's think it is ADEM.

We would love to hear more of your story.  Welcome to the MS Forum, by the way.