Thread: Introduction
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Old 12-17-2023, 02:52 PM
Benni Benni is offline
New Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2023
Posts: 4
Benni Benni is offline
New Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2023
Posts: 4
Default Introduction

Hi. New to the board, of course. I'm a 58 year old female, who has been having some issues in the last few years. It started with my eyes. I noticed that they would get fatigued real easy and it would become difficult to see the computer screen. It almost seemed like I was squinting and I couldn't figure out why I was squinting all the time. Since I work on the computer (a lot) for my job, this became an issue. I thought that it was perhaps due to not having gotten new eye glasses in awhile, but I didn't have insurance with my previous job. When I finally did get insurance, I was able to get new eye glasses, but noticed that it continued. I got light screens for my computer, but that didn't help any.

A little while later, I noticed how heavy my arm would get when I was styling my hair. I thought it was just due to getting older. I stopped styling my hair. Then I started noticing how gruff my voice would sound, and how weak it would get sometimes, like I'd have to force the last few words out, but my voice would drop in volume and it just sounded breathless. I've had a few episodes of choking on my own saliva, or while eating chocolate, and will accidentally feel like I've inhaled something I'm eating.

One day, my eye got exceptionally bad so I took some selfies and was shocked at how much my eye lid was drooping. And when I forced my eye open, I noticed that my right eye was looking towards my nose, while my left eye was looking at the camera. Cold wash cloths seemed to help decrease the droop. I decided to see my doctor. I'd had a stroke 2 years ago and was afraid that it was related to that.

Doc suspects MG and sent me to an ophthalmologist. The Ophthal. wants to send me to an ocular neurologist, because he still suspects MG even though the labs came back normal. But the ocular neuro isn't covered by my insurance.

My symptoms are weird, because it's worse if I didn't get enough sleep (starts about 10AM), but if I do get enough sleep it may started later in the day. And then there are times when it doesn't happen at all. I've been putting it off to just getting older, but now I'm beginning to wonder if it is MG. I broke a rib a little over a week ago, and my drooping eye and my raspy weak voice started acting up again this week, which got me to thinking about going to a neuro that specializes in MG. I don't need a referral to go.

If I do go, what kind of tests should I expect, since the labs came back negative? Thank you in advance for any help in this.
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