doctor thinks its ms

[sweepette94]

hi all,
I posted back in sept 2015 with symptoms. Had a rough 2 months during then and now. My hands got to the point where I couldn't hold a pen or write my name, zip my pants,cook...etc. bless my husband he did all the cooking. He's become quite the chef...lol. Everything is back to normal except my hands still feel like I have wet sand all over them and numbness in the tips of them. I had an mri and my neuro spotted a lesion on my c spine but he wants me to have another mri on a stronger machine, so its off to Duke here in nc. With no lesions on the brain and only 1 on the spine is it really possible to have MS?

[supermum_ms]

Welcome back, it's good to hear you actually went and saw a neurologist, but i'd say it's possible that it still 'may' not be MS.......what you described was not only bilateral but in all peripherals before it spread all over, which generally isn't something that happens with MS. 1 MS cord lesion is not usually big enough to traverse the cord, which it would need to be to affect both sides of the body.  

Your symptom pattern and single cord lesion might actually be more consistent with something like Transverse Myelitis (TM), which does tend to cause that type of bilateral or symmetrical pattern, generally symptoms fall below the level where the inflammation or lesion in the spinal cord is located.

TM is more commonly idiopathic but a very small percentage of people dx with TM are later dx with MS, Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) or Devic’s Disease so technically there is an MS association.  

Although i should point out that cord lesions are really difficult to pick up on anything less than a 3T MRI, it's possible if 1 was found on a low strength MRI, a stronger MRI could potentially discover you have more than 1 cord lesion and possibly even some brain lesion will show up too.

Sorry, there is a possibility it's something else but if you do have more lesions show up on the stronger MRI, MS would also be possible too, knowing exactly what condition you have may take a little longer to work out....

Cheers.........JJ

[sweepette94]

Ty so much for this info. TM does sound more in line with the way this started and where I'm at now.