Quote:
Originally Posted by markec1962
I started having MP when I was in the Air Force in the early 80's. Needless to say it was never diagnosed, and the doctors thought it was just a muscle strain. Every time I ran at full speed I would get a burning sensation in my left upper thigh that would last only a few minutes followed by 5 to 10 minutes of numbness. About 5 years ago I was playing softball and had the pain when I ran to 1st base. Then the numbness came and the feeling has never returned. It has been both a blessing and a curse. I haven't had the pain caused by exercise since. But I have had what I can only describe as phantom pain. On several occasions, I have been wakened up by extremely sharp pain in my thigh that is very short in duration but repeats every few seconds. On a few of those occasions, after about 5 minutes, I stated having muscle contractions in every muscle in my body. It seemed to me I was having convulsions. the muscle contractions kept happening every few seconds like clock-work even after the nerve pain stopped. The first time it happened I went to the doctor about 8 hours after it started. He gave me a drug used to treat panic disorders, and explained what was happening was sort of like hiccups. It stopped a few hours later. For the next few days every muscle in my body ached. I still get the phantom pain once in a while, but the severity has decreased to the tolerable level without the muscle contractions.
Has anyone here completely lost feeling from MP? Is there any treatment for it when it gets this far?
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Marc,
Yours sounds very different then mine. In mine the pain starts after standing for about 20 minutes, slight burn in my thighs at first quickly progressing to sharp stabbing pains, then heads into the full sharp white-hot stabbing pain.
The biggest difference in the 14 years I have had it is the intensity and the length of time it lasts after I get the weight off my legs. The last year it has become unbearable, and will last for the whole night if I did too much.
The numbness has been there for at least 10 years, I could draw a ellipse with a pen on both thighs where the numbness is, my neurologist has shown me a book that defines the those areas exactly. The numbness really doesn’t bother me much except some times in the evenings in bed or when I sit in my computer chair too long I cant stand any pressure against those areas.
If you read back to my posts you will see that I have been seeing a pain management neurologist recently, he has defined me 100% disabled. Fun. He took me off the Lyrica; I was having trouble driving on it. I am up to 200 mg of Tegratol 3 x a day but I still need the vicodan to function, that is to get much done, better then I was but not quite were I was hopping to be.
There is an operation to have the top of the nerves clipped, which I was warned would create permanent numbness in the areas I mentioned earlier. (Like I care considering I have no feeling there except for pain anyway.) Problem is I am not a good candidate for any type of surgery at this time. (diabetes, heart and had a stroke last February. I am being told any type of surgery is a year away. Cannot wait I will get it as soon as I am able.
My advice is get a Neurologist that treats this disease specifically, my doc says most people respond well to the tegretol, if not they get the surgery, which is about 80% effective. Good Luck and keep us posted.
~michael