Not sure whether to go through with MRI's-suggestions?

[beth0277]

I am at sort of a crossroads and wanting to get some opinions. I have anxiety and it has, over the years, caused a slew of neuro symptoms, but I could mostly attribute them to anxious times and they came and went quickly. (A little tingling here, a muscle twitch there), nothing that I was too worried about. I have now had 2 episodes that I have lost sensation in my bladder so a neuro said it would be a good idea to get MRI's to rule out MS. I agreed wholeheartedly. Now, upon thinking about it, these times have come at very stressful periods in my life, and have coincided with me starting psychiatric medication. I know that anticholinergic medications can have a strong effect on your bladder. The first "event" stopped very shortly after I stopped taking my medicine since I thought that was the cause. I was fine for 2 more years, until I started going through a rough patch and started up on meds again. I think my anxiety is playing in to it also, as in I am thinking way, way too much about my bladder sensation.

At any rate, I am now considering holding off, indefinitely, on the MRI's. I am worried that while I may not have MS, "something" will show up and it will be a waiting game of seeing if I get diagnosed or not. I have read numerous accounts of people who have had a spot or something show up on their MRI and even get misdiagnosed with MS and I worry that would happen to me. As my psychiatrist told me "Sometimes if you look for something, you will find it."

My fear is that if I do have MS, it will progress and get worse since I won't be treating it. Now, of course, if I had vision changes or a very specific symptom, like sudden weakness, tingling, etc, I would get checked out ASAP. I guess my fear is just that I could have MS and it would "silently" progress without causing me symptoms.

What are the chances something like that would happen? If I did have the disease, and it was progressing, is it fair to say that I would have very apparent flare ups? I don't want to go through the stress of a test that as of today, I don't think I need, but I want to be conservative, as well.

The first neuro I saw said that it would be very rare for MS to only affect my bladder since it would have to be such a microscopic lesion in "just" the right place. I admit there have been some other symptoms, but they were always when I was anxious about something, and I know anxiety can mimic a lot of MS symptoms. I have never really had anything that has lasted for more than a day, usually just something such as my hand falling asleep for a few minutes or some twitching in my leg for a little while. I should add that I have not had ANY of these symptoms while I was on anti-anxiety medication, which makes me think most of this is anxiety.

I guess I just want opinions on whether it would be safe to push off the MRI's to see if anything else develops. Truth be told, most people probably wouldn't even notice the little things I do with my body and the first neuro I saw was pretty confident that things were okay (passed my neuro exam with flying colors). Her attending doctor was a little more cautious, but she said he is just like that by nature.

Any suggestions? I would just hate to go through the MRI's and the stress of being told "we see something but it may be nothing so we will wait and test again in a year".

[Sailorsong]

I don't want to scare you into getting the MRI done, but your last post caught my eye where you said you didn't want to make a decision that could do harm in the future.

You did bring up a lot of good points as to why you think it is just anxiety. But it is also true that some of the people here are or depression / anxiety medications to help control their MS systems. My doctors have tried a number of them on me, but I could never tolerate them.

The next point I would like to make is that if you do have MS the earlier it is treated the better the outcome tends to be. This is not because it cures the MS but slows down the progression.

So the disease could progress without giving you any more symptoms until one day a very serious life changing symptom could show up but with permanent damage. So how would you feel about that happening?

Like Lulu said the decision is up to you...  

Dennis

[beth0277]

I would prefer not to get it done but don't want to make a decision that could do harm in the future.

[beth0277]

I think there is a risk of getting the MRI and having something inconclusive. I would have a hard time,  anxiety wise, with that. My fear is not getting it done...could the disease progress without giving me any more symptoms? Or would it eventually "make itself known" so that I would know I need to get an MRI.

[Lulu54]

Wow, Beth.  You ask some really tough questions here.  Good for you to understand the role that anxiety can play in manifesting vague symptoms. You have done an excellent job here of being honest about your own interpretation of these problems.  

Obviously you have to live with whatever choice you make about further testing -

Would the stress of being told you would be watched  be any different than the stress of knowing that something may be wrong, but you have chosen to not look for answers at this time?  

How do you learn to quiet the anxiety about whether something more serious is going on when you have these symptoms, whether your have the MRI done or not ?  I hope you have some coping mechanism in place.

Unfortunately in our medical system, so many doctors practice defensive medicine and order tests such as MRI's not because they think they are necessary but because they want to avoid future liability in case there really is something there.  That may be why this neuro suggested the MRI.

Is it going to really hurt anything if you go ahead and do the MRI? I'm happy to kick this around further with you, but ultimately you have to make the choice as to what is best for you.

be well, Lulu

[beth0277]

Oh, and I'll add that a lot of the anxiety type symptoms that I have had have been shared by some of my friends with anxiety, so I know that is a possibility.