Anxiety, MS, or what? Very worried!!

[Jenny Wren]

Back in 2000, I suffered what I believed to be a anxiety attack, it left me with 3 months of nausea, because of not eating and no appetite I would assume that is why it lasted so long. Spring of 2001, still a little nauseaded, looking up nausea on the internet, MS came up as one of the reasons.  This is where my life turned upside down, my gram had MS, diagnosed at age 60, as you can see from my previous posts, I'm concerned.  I had the migraines before the anxiety, but when googling nausea and MS, came across the facial tingling (MS), shortly I developed the little bug crawling sensations, and I so have muscle twitches, seems worse when its cold.  I have never experienced weakness, numbness, bladder or bowel problems, I can tolerate heat.  I tried Prozac for about 3 years, it never took these feelings away, just recently started xanax, this helps a good bit, but not completely.  I have had these feelings for 6 years, thats why the doc ordered the brain MRI, he wasn't convinced that it was MS, just anxiety.  So you see this is the reason for all my questions.  Can anxiety really cause these weird feelings?  I live everyday worrying about MS.  After 6 years with no worsening of symptoms (sometimes better), do you think it could be safe to say its "psychological?" Never had the cervical MRI, just brain, neuro exam-normal, no problem there,bloodwork fine, was tested for Lyme (ELISA), my fear now after reading all these posts from Lyme patients is that maybe this could be my problem.  Thanks for your time, patience, and thoughts, they are greatly appreciated. 3 previous posts!!

[lat67]

Hi Jenney,

I guess what i would really like to say is I agree with what Kate is saying ( borninquisitive).  I resent when a doctor tells me this is all due to anxiety. How could one not be upset or anxious when there bodys are so sick.  I did go to a therapists at the advise of my Neuroligist....this is a quote from what she told me.  " You have APPROPRIATE anxiety for you situation" Believe me I went back and told my Neuroligist who then just snubed me.

Hi Kate,

You bring up excellent points.The sad truth is that there are more doctors that dont truly understand or want to help.  Finding the one, which i have, is crusial in getting better.

My story is very similar.  All the same symptoms, tingling, numbness, crushing fatigue, muscle twitchin and jerking, weak lega.  I have had two Neuroligists rule out MS.  Afetr two years of being convinced I had MS I now have a diagnosis of Lyme disease and am in treatment.  I know that I have lyme disease.  Not knowing is the worst part.

At any rate feel free to email me at home if you guys have any quetions or concerns.

Good Luck to all of us who so desperately need to get better.

***@****

Lesley

[John_Madison CT]

I can tell you from first hand experience that Anxiety CAN manifest itself into many types of body ailments and horrible feelings.  Everyone is different and their bodies show the anxiety in different ways.

I would have a doc treat your Anxiety with serious meds, then see how you felt.

I went through this just a few short months ago.  The Zyprexa worked very quickly and as the anxiety went away, my feelings of poor health did too.

[Pum]

Did the prozac help with the worry?  paxil can be very helpful for obsessive thoughts.

Let me play devil's avocate for a minute.  Just say you have MS.  What would that change? What I'm trying to say is you are already living your life at half strength due to the worry.  In the end we will all die and we will all get a disease/illness one day.  In the meantime while we are symptom free, well they are only mild (unless they are debilitating, sorry if yours are)we should enjoy life to the maximum.  I am very bad at taking this advice myself.  

I might be completely off track if MS is treatable if it is caught early but I'm not sure that it is one of those things that time is of the essence.

just trying a different thought approach as I assume doctors have already cleared you of the MS diagnosis.  

Good luck

[rcs2]

Hi again,

I agree with the trial, I'm a vet and we do this a lot in our everyday practice. Sometimes the animal completely recovers and we never learned what was causing the animal to so sick.

So why not doing this with humans? As long as I'm not given something that can kill me, why not??

Are you still in treatment? Have you ever had any positive test for Lyme (Igenex, etc)?

All the best,

[patsy10]

Hikerrunner, your above post was very good.  I didn't read the post about people being hypochondriacs though.  After what I have been through, I have no faith in doctors.  They misdiagnosed my neuro problem as being cervical myelopathy from a herniated disk.  As a result, I had an unnecessary surgery which greatly worsened my condition.  I was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia which I don't believe in anyway.  I believe  chronic pain, fatigue conditions exist but they have to be caused by "something".  Two doctors diagnosed me with fibro (neuro, rheumy)neither checked me for the tender points which are the diagnostic criteria for fibro(11 of the 18 must be present).  There is no way I can trust doctors after this.  In regards to lyme, I had 3 bullseyes 13 years ago followed by a condition just like I have now.  I did improve on antibiotics.  I have never tested positive for lyme.  I took antibiotics again this time but had to travel out of state to see a lyme specialist as the docs around here won't treat without a positive test.  I don't know if I have lyme or not.  I'm skeptical probably because I am also in the healthcare field and am used to seeing abnormal test results correlating with diseases.  I think it's definitely worth a trial of antibiotics.

[fujiamy]

I hear ya, I have been going through same stuff. All my tests clear, but not looked into the LYME thing. I was back east this year, prior to all of my sensations starting. Off and on my toes will tingle, bottoms of my feet, and the worst is the "burning" feeling I get on my back, legs etc. I have been told by two neuros is is stresss/ anxiety. It gets worse when I am relaxing, trying to sleep etc. I will even wake up with them.

How do you guys even post ?  I am on the west coast and have no clue when able to post.