Some of my problems that I thought were MS related were actually side effects to some of the medications that I take for MS stuff.

Back in december, I started taking Baclofen regularly because I had a couple of bad charley horse leg spasms a few nights in a row. About two weeks after that, I started to notice that my left thumb, index finger and middle finger were tingly numb. (tops of my feet also have felt weird, but that's not as irritating for some reason)

I was blaming the MS for it for the past month or so, and then remembered that I have problems with numbness getting worse when I take antibiotics, so I checked the side effects for the baclofen. Numbness in the extremities is a apparently a common side effect. I mentioned it to my neuro, he asked me a few questions about the leg spasms I had, and he suggested that I go off the baclofen (slowly, even tho I dont use it full strength) and see if the numb, tinglies get better in my left hand. Said that I could always start back up on the baclofen if I needed to.

It has helped some, my index finger was almost totally numb at the tip of the finger last week. It's been since about last thursday since I started to back off on the baclofen, and I havent had any since friday or saturday. The numbness is now pretty much just in the pad of my thumb, and the tinglies are no where near as bad in the rest of the affected fingers as it had been. (tingly fingers are really annoying, especially when I'm trying to knit or crochet)

The tops of my feet dont feel as weird now too.

So, I guess my neuro was right that it might have been the baclofen that was causing me numbness in the fingers.

What annoys me about that, is if some of the medications that I take for some of the MS symptoms can seem to cause other MS-like symptoms....then how do I know if it's an actual MS symptom, or some bizzaro side effect from one of the symptom management medications?


I also tend to panic when I get brand new symptoms or when something that gave me a lot of problems before decide to fire up again and cause me more problems. (I kind of panic more for vision problems, but I really really whine when something goes completely numb. I hate the really bad numbness. Vertigo sucks too...I'll beg for steroids if I get vertigo that doesnt go away)