Hello - thank you for taking time to read my question. I am a 34 mom of two little ones who has had a series of health crises over the past year (or two). I have been diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis and Spondlytits (sp?) which is an autoimmune arthritis disease kinda like Rheumatoid Arthritis, my hands are all mangled in pain as are my wrists, ankles, toes, and my spine is growing bony spurs that are causing muscle spasms and neuropathy in my legs. Like all systemic autoimmune diseases I am really fatigued and then to add insult to injury I also get covered in sores (the psorasis part of the deal), am loosing my hair, and my eyes have dried out. Sigh. Currently I am on methotrexate but its not cutting it and I need to look to the better, newer drugs (Enbrel, Humria, etc)
The problem - Enbrel, Humeria et al, would make any undiagnosed demylination disease worse and is counterindicated. This is a problem because I have had some weird episodes in the past that *could* mean I have something MS-like going on.... or I am just crazy... or maybe I am having optical migranes... who knows. This time last year, I was reeling around like a drunken sailor, with a kind of vertigo where things didn't spin, but rocked. I was unable to stand without holding on to something. My hands shook when I reached them out, I was seeing double at random times... and then one day around three months after all that started, it suddenly stopped. Poof! It all disappeared. I saw a neurologist and he did an MRI - it came back clean, and he never called me back after that. By that time I was seeing a rheumatologist and focusing on diagnosing my PsA so I just let it go.
I had a really bad experience with that neurologist - it soured me on neurologists. I have no burning desire to ever set foot in a neurologist office again, but here I am. My rheumatologist referred me to some "nice" neurologists who wouldn't be mean, but I wonder if I should go all out and travel to Houston (I am in Austin) to the MS clinic there to get evaluated. Austin doesn't have the best MRI machines or a big clinic that specializes in MS like Houston does.
Would that be overkill? What would you do? Would you stay here and go the nice neurologist the rheumy referred or travel to a big center? Does anyone know anything about the Maxine Mesinger MS clinic in Houston? Does it have a good rep? Thanks for any information you can pass on! Its a lot to think about.