Originally Posted by kebsa

It was suggested to you that your discomfort was not likely to be MS because it was intermittent- i can see the point of the post but i do not entirely agree. I also noite that someone said that you donot have confirmed MS- so my comments are based more on the concept of neuropathic pain/discomfrt regardless of the underlying cause/ neuro pathic discomfort certainly does not have to be a constant issue to exist- i am an RN plus a person with neuro pain ( my comments are based on both). I have a condition called Reflex sympathetic Dystrophy that leads to severe neuropathic pain, i am an amputee who sufferes phantom pain (also a neuropathic pain syndrome) and i have highly reactive RRMS with numerous neuropathic pain [roblems. The one thing that i know for sure about neuro painis that while it can be constant for some, it can also come and go- i will go for weeks without phantom pain only then to be kept awake for days on end with severe pain ( no rhyme or reason as to what caused it), it will be so severe that it feels i ma being hit with a cattle prod, it makes me yelp in pain. IF you think that this may be a neuro pathic problem ( you do not need MS to have such an issue- RSD is the classic example, it starts after minor injury but leads to extremely disabling symptoms)- talk to your Dr, there are no magic cures but the drugs such as lyrica and neurontin can make a very big difference. On the non drug idea, its is easy to try to avoid touching the area that hurts to avoid pain but ultimately this can make things worse, the area gets more and more sensitive to less stimulation- for example people with severe phantom pain will often minimise the discomfort by a techniqu e called counter irritation- in my case this means that when i get pain in my stump i will sit and continuosly lightly slap the affending area- gradually you no longer feel the pain but feel the slaps instead ( the NS can only transmit the one type of impusle at a time is the theory) some people will use TENS units to provide the counterirritation. Obvioulsy, if may not be a neuro thing, it could be to do with detergents etc- you can test this by eliminations. eg go back to just soap and water rather than powerful detergents, eliminate fabric softener for a while etc etc to see if it helps but also talk to you PCP about the issue, he is probably the best situated to look at the issue from a more global point rather than whether or not it is MS