Possible Nerve Problems

[Racer92]

I've never posted in a message board about the things I have been experiencing, but I am just wondering if others have experienced the same thing.


To start with this, I need to fully explain the timeline. To start I will say that I am Male, 20, and I do have a bit of a hunched back after carrying a heavy backpack in highschool. I am 6"2 185lbs with no real health problems before this.

In Feburary of 2010, I was outside shoveling and raking leaves. When I came in I noticed a burning sensation in the 2 end fingers on my left land. Like they had gotten too cold, but the feeling didnt go away. That night I experienced a bad numbness sensation (parathesia I believe its called) where to the touch you cannot feel it, but you can feel pain if you were to do something like poke it with a needle. The numbness ran mainly on the right side of my neck, up towards my face, I guess occasionally towards the head, but rarely.

I went to the minor emergency clinic..Nothing found. I went to the doctor..Nothing found. I had an MRI of my brain, neck, and spine done. All I was told from the MRI's was that they noticed nerve degenertion that takes place with age (I was 18 at the time). I went to a neurologist and nothing was found.  I went to the chiropractor, and for the most part for about a year it became a relatively stable condition, where I would have a numbness on the right side of my throat and neck if I sat too long, if I stood up or layed face down it would go away. That entire year I had been going to the chiropractor to treat it. It did have minor flare ups where it would have lightness in the arms or legs. One thing it did is give me horrible anxiety. Ever since this started I am having

Fast forward to 2 months ago. My back (or whatever is causing this) is causing more severe problems. It started with a constant sick nervous feeling for 2 hours. Then what I can only describe as a severe nerve pinch took place. It was like a shock wave going through my body. Felt almost like a temperature change, a very very nervous feeling, a bit of a pressure in the chest (bottom of ribcage), as well as a severe numb feeling that would come and go on the chest and both sides of the throat, as well as a light feeling in the arms and legs. It lasted one night, I could tell for the next week that the symptoms I had previously had were a little more severe. One week later it pinched like that again. Again it set off an anxiety attack as it was starting. This time I went to the hospital.

The hospital ran an EKG on me, did a blood test and all came back normal. They said it was an anxiety attack, and gave me anxiety pills..Which I absolutely do not want to take. Since then I have periods where I feel no symptoms for 12 hours or a day. Then 1 of 2 things happen:

1. I get either a bit of numbness that can be cleared by moving, a light feeling in the arms legs, and a fast heart beat. Plus anxiety attack symptoms.

2. A shockwave feeling where I feel a shooting sensation from my head to my toes, or a shooting sensation in the cheast followed by the symptoms above.

I have noticed a point on the spine where there is a buzzing sensation that seems to radiate from occasionally onto the back of my shoulder. I have seen another doctor since then, who was really a great doctor and spent a lot of time with me and she could not find anything wrong either.


I know the hospital wanted to blame this on anxiety...I know I have an anxiety problem that has gotten 100 times worse since this started. Now the smallest sensations or feelings out of place can give me an anxiety attack. But I DO NOT, believe that anxiety is the cause of this. I believe it goes a long way in making my symptoms worse, but I am 99.9 percent sure they are not the cause of many of the symptoms.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

[Racer92]

I should also say that going through and remembering a lot of my symptoms. Some do seem consistent with that of a pinched nerve root. Which can also cause a weak feeling in arms, and numbness, as well as some other symptoms. I can also pick a more specific point in the spine that is in the "hunched" part of the spine that seems to either have a mild pain or buzzing feeling either before or after some attacks that I get. Anxiety certainly will make each of those problems worse and create other problems. For instance:

I had a feeling like I would have a shortness of breath when my symptoms acting up. While I have still noticed that feeling a couple times, I noticed that when I would get even a little panic my breathing rate would pick up and I wouldnt exhale fully. I was trying to fully inhale while only exhaling about half of the way, leading to a feeling of tightness when I was trying to breathe.


While I am still very concerned about MS. I have heard that it can sometimes be easy to diagnose, which is why I am hoping that either the neurologist, 3 different doctors, 3 chiropractors, or at the visit to the hospital I had would have caught that I had MS.

[Racer92]

Thank you for your advice on MS. I have studied MS a lot and found symptoms to be similar to what I am showing. But, the MRI I had...Was perfect, if not almost perfect. It showed some narrowing of the foramen (I believe that was it), and it was attributed to the sports that I have played.

My story probably didn't come out as clear as I had liked as I typed it late at night.


I've had a neurologist, and 2 doctors tell me that I do not have MS. The last doctor I saw said I was almost as strong as most football players she has. I've had 2 chiropractors say that neurologically I am strong, and everything seems to be in working order. Every doctor I see, says similar things. That I am in very good health, even though it just doesnt feel that way.

[Dr Sharma]

Hi there.  MS is a chronic demyelinating disorder where the disease phase is characterized by active phase and remissions. It has multiple symptoms and signs and is a diagnosis of exclusion. The symptoms of multiple sclerosis are loss of balance, muscle spasms, numbness in any area, problems with walking and coordination, tremors in one or more arms and legs. Bowel and bladder symptoms include frequency of micturition, urine leakage, eye symptoms like double vision uncontrollable rapid eye movements, facial pain, painful muscle spasms, tingling, burning in arms or legs, depression, dizziness, hearing loss, fatigue etc. The treatment is essentially limited to symptomatic therapy so the course of action would not change much whether MS has been diagnosed or not. Apart from clinical neurological examination, MRI shows MS as paler areas of demyelination, two different episodes of demyelination separated by one month in at least two different brain locations. Spinal tap is done and CSF electrophoresis reveals oligoclonal bands suggestive of immune activity, which is suggestive but not diagnostic of MS. Demyelinating neurons, transmit nerve signals slower than non-demyelinated ones and can be detected with EP tests. These are visual evoked potentials, brain stem auditory evoked response, and somatosensory evoked potential. Slower nerve responses in any one of these is not confirmatory of MS but can be used to complement diagnosis along with a neurological examination, medical history and an MRI in addition, a spinal tap. Therefore, it would be prudent to consult your neurologist with these concerns. Hope this helps. Take care