I'm posting on behalf of my Mom. We've been struggling to find out what is happening to her for several months now. Here is the general break down.

67 yr old, white female,
Hx of small stroke 5 yrs ago with minimal residual issues. Some slight numbness in left hand and mouth, more so when fatigued
Dx of Fibromyalgia for several years, symptoms mainly muscle pain and fatigue, some fibrofog

In Feb of this year she started having debilitating headaches mainly one sided, but eventually became unilateral. These would last for days on end with very little relief. Also had ringing in the ears. PCP attributed to sinus infection and she was on several courses of antibiotics with no relief.
Over the next couple of months she began to notice cognitive and memory changes. Started with small things like leaving the water in the sink running for long periods of time, multiple times, and then progressed to more serious issues such as not being able to remember how to back the car out of the garage. (BTW, she did stop driving). She had a difficult time with speech. Lots of stuttering to get words out and difficulty keeping a train of thought. Also of issue was balance. Had difficulty walking a straight line, would list to the left, felt as if the ground was coming up to her and would have to grasp things in order to walk around.

All of this sounds very neuro to me. Went to PCP first to get referral and then referred to both ENT and Neuro. ENT did exam and said that there was no blockage, infection or signs of any thing in their realm that did not appear normal and to consult Neuro.

Neuro ran full work up of blood work, MRI, Temporal and Carotid Ultrasounds. EVERYTHING came back totally normal! The only thing that showed up was a slightly elevated SED rate which we attributed to an inflammation somewhere.

All the neuro testing took about to July to complete. The Neuro basically had nothing to treat and told her to come back in 6 months. By the beginning of August she was starting to notice the symptoms slowly lessening and eventually seemed to go away. Her speech improved, her cognition, balance were better. Headache went away as did ear ringing.
Great!!!!! Except that now the symptoms are returning one by one. She has given up driving again because she is too confused. The speech is back to being a stutter and difficult. Ear ringing is bad. Balance is off.

Sorry so long of a post, but we are just looking to see if anyone has any ideas. Oh, also have been to an Ophthalmologist. Also a dead end.

TIA for any advice, suggestions you may have.

Hi Pam88

I am sorry to read about your mother.

What you have described might indicate sporadic hemiplegic migraine - there is some general information about it here; http://www.migrainetrust.org/factshe...migraine-10913 .

It might be an idea if you encouraged your mother to get that possibility checked out by a neurologist.

With care.