I so hear you on the "I feel like some sort of autoimmune freak. I'm tired of...", Trish.

The doctors don't seem to care, the drugs don't work and often make things worse instead, and cheese is off the menu (literally) because of digestive issues. I'm about ready to try the wine though...and a lot of it, if you get my drift .
I wonder if many MS affected people are driven to drink?

How's your digestive stuff doing these days? That's some kind of an added bonus isn't it?
Mine's mostly been holding up OK, but I'm taking way too much Ibuprofen for joint, muscle and neuropathic pain, so its been letting me know that I need to back off. Its down to choosing which area gets to have the pain and inflammation. Take the Ibuprofen and the body pains are less but the guts react, or don't take it and the guts settle down, but the joints, muscles and nerves fire up.

My left thumb joints have been subluxating for the past few days, which is a new Sx, and exquisitely painful, both when it does it and to have to pull on it to realign the joints. I'm hoping that it just got injured and that I didn't feel it due to numbness in the area, and that it isn't the beginning of rheumatoid arthritis...yet another auto-immune disease. Isn't that stupid? The area has been numb for ages, but now hurts like crazy too. Try explaining that one to a doctor...or anyone else for that matter.

On top of all that, I've been getting electrical-type zaps in the right side of my face around the jaw and cheek. I've already lost some of the muscles of mastication on the left side after suffering a seizure a couple of years ago. Now Trigeminal neuralgia keeps coming to mind with every Zap, and again, I can only hope not.

My MS neuro hasn't come through with alternate scripts for the fatigue or the pain after the two that we've tried caused too many side effects, so I'm about to give up on him...again.
My PCP might have some ideas to offer, so that's my next stop, but I'm not very eager to go in; just so that he can look at me like I have three heads.
So I hear you on taking a doctor holiday too.

Its getting progressively more difficult to keep a positive attitude, without also noting that doing such requires voluntary delusion and a whole lot of denial.
OK...that's my whine, sans cheese for the day.

Passing the whine and cheese tray...

With love, Erika