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What are your 'attacks' like? How often?
Hi... I'm new here. I just got my MRI result. 4 lesions on my brain. For several years I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Now it appears that it's not fibro and likely is MS. I'm waiting on seeing the neurologist. So far I have just seen my GP.
What happens when you get a flare up/attack? I'm asking so I can compare to my own symptoms.
I get flare ups fairly often. Always when I over exert myself either physically or mentally. I get bad pain in my shoulder, neck and head. My face hurts. I also have severe fatigue. I have to remain very still as no meds work so far. This happens monthly. More if I overdo it or because of fluxuating weather. Sometimes this lasts for 3 days.
On a day to day I have dizziness. Very weak leg muscles and a general weakness all over. I get weird muscle spasms all over. Jerky things that are unpredictable. Fatigue is part of each day along with lots of overall soft tissue and joint pain.
That's it in a nutshell. I'm on meds for fibromyalgia (Lyrica) but it doesn't work well and the side effects ar BAD!
I'd appreciate hearing from you. Thanks!
What happens when you get a flare up/attack? I'm asking so I can compare to my own symptoms.
I get flare ups fairly often. Always when I over exert myself either physically or mentally. I get bad pain in my shoulder, neck and head. My face hurts. I also have severe fatigue. I have to remain very still as no meds work so far. This happens monthly. More if I overdo it or because of fluxuating weather. Sometimes this lasts for 3 days.
On a day to day I have dizziness. Very weak leg muscles and a general weakness all over. I get weird muscle spasms all over. Jerky things that are unpredictable. Fatigue is part of each day along with lots of overall soft tissue and joint pain.
That's it in a nutshell. I'm on meds for fibromyalgia (Lyrica) but it doesn't work well and the side effects ar BAD!
I'd appreciate hearing from you. Thanks!
Lyrica can cause a lot of the day to day side symptoms you are experiencing as well. It is great for many people, but I failed it miserably. You might want to consider speaking to your doctor about another treatment for nerve pain, because Lyrica "could" be doing more damage than good. Sometimes those with chronic illness end up in this endless cycle of one med causing symptoms, another med prescribed to deal with those symptoms, and so on.
Over exertion increasing symptoms is typical of every autoimmune condition I'm familiar with. If you had ms, this is not a relapse. MS relapses happen randomly, courtesy of the part of the CNS that was damaged, and cause symptoms particular to that bit of neurological hardware. They have nothing to do with over exertion. AS JJ already stated, a lesion would affect one area of your body under control of that area of the brain, versus the all over symptoms you are experiencing. Double vision, optic neuritis, right side weakness, one limb weakness etc.
Severe pain and fatigue are non-specific symptoms as well, and don't immediately suggest an ms cause.
It's unlikely that you are looking at an ms diagnosis, in my (non professional) opinion. Certainly none of your symptoms are typical of ms. Keep us posted on what the neurologist says :).
Over exertion increasing symptoms is typical of every autoimmune condition I'm familiar with. If you had ms, this is not a relapse. MS relapses happen randomly, courtesy of the part of the CNS that was damaged, and cause symptoms particular to that bit of neurological hardware. They have nothing to do with over exertion. AS JJ already stated, a lesion would affect one area of your body under control of that area of the brain, versus the all over symptoms you are experiencing. Double vision, optic neuritis, right side weakness, one limb weakness etc.
Severe pain and fatigue are non-specific symptoms as well, and don't immediately suggest an ms cause.
It's unlikely that you are looking at an ms diagnosis, in my (non professional) opinion. Certainly none of your symptoms are typical of ms. Keep us posted on what the neurologist says :).
COMMUNITY LEADER
Hi and welcome,
Your said... "I just got my MRI result. 4 lesions on my brain. For several years I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Now it appears that it's not fibro and likely is MS. I'm waiting on seeing the neurologist. So far I have just seen my GP"
....before you get into your head that you were misdiagnosed with Fibromyalgia and likely have MS instead, the honest truth is that those brain lesions may not actually have anything to do with a neurological condition like MS, at this stage you'd be much better off keeping open minded to their causation!
T2-hyperintense foci are one of the most frequent findings on MRI's and in most cases the brain lesions are not caused by demyelinating neurological condition like MS.
The more common type of white matter brain lesion are 1-3mm sized non specific micro vascular lesions and are associated with many different conditions eg migraine, viral, hypertension, some mental health conditions, etc etc
and they can even be perfectly normal depending on a persons age, lesion locations, size and type..
Symptoms and relapse (attack, flare etc) pattern wise; because of how lesion damage from neurological conditions like MS 'basically' works, lesion damage due to conditions like MS genuinely don't cause "all over" symptoms or "monthly" relapses....it's very unlikely that your all over weakness, muscle spasms, and overall soft tissue and joint pain would be caused by a neurological condition like MS as they're not usually consistent or suggestive of conditions like MS.
What to keep in mind in regards to MS is that 4 brain lesions is not in itself very suggestive of MS, your lesion location(s), size, shape, type etc along with symptom type, symptom pattern and your neurologically abnormal clinical signs etc when combined are what's important in determining your most likely diagnosis and at this stage you honestly need to remain open minded!
Hope that helps..........JJ
Your said... "I just got my MRI result. 4 lesions on my brain. For several years I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Now it appears that it's not fibro and likely is MS. I'm waiting on seeing the neurologist. So far I have just seen my GP"
....before you get into your head that you were misdiagnosed with Fibromyalgia and likely have MS instead, the honest truth is that those brain lesions may not actually have anything to do with a neurological condition like MS, at this stage you'd be much better off keeping open minded to their causation!
T2-hyperintense foci are one of the most frequent findings on MRI's and in most cases the brain lesions are not caused by demyelinating neurological condition like MS.
The more common type of white matter brain lesion are 1-3mm sized non specific micro vascular lesions and are associated with many different conditions eg migraine, viral, hypertension, some mental health conditions, etc etc
and they can even be perfectly normal depending on a persons age, lesion locations, size and type..
Symptoms and relapse (attack, flare etc) pattern wise; because of how lesion damage from neurological conditions like MS 'basically' works, lesion damage due to conditions like MS genuinely don't cause "all over" symptoms or "monthly" relapses....it's very unlikely that your all over weakness, muscle spasms, and overall soft tissue and joint pain would be caused by a neurological condition like MS as they're not usually consistent or suggestive of conditions like MS.
What to keep in mind in regards to MS is that 4 brain lesions is not in itself very suggestive of MS, your lesion location(s), size, shape, type etc along with symptom type, symptom pattern and your neurologically abnormal clinical signs etc when combined are what's important in determining your most likely diagnosis and at this stage you honestly need to remain open minded!
Hope that helps..........JJ
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