1- For any of you, has this ever happened? Has your brain ever felt like it is being squeezed to the point of hurting? Not like a headache/migraine. But like it is shrinking. Or- like a sponge that is getting the water squished out of it?

I said the ball of pain in my head that sometimes feels like it's in a vice grip of sorts is like a ball of tightly packaged dough, and when I try to get through a pain episode, I imagine it being pulled apart gently, like kneading a ball of dough flat out.

2- Sometimes I can't taste the food I'm eating.

Most of the time, I have to load my food up with sodium free spices to taste anything! I like mustard a lot too, as I can usually taste that, but for the most part, food doesn't taste at all what it used to. That was added incentive to quit smoking at the time. I thought my taste would come back! No such luck.

3- My sense of smell is sometimes not working or completely gone.

Same. I have phantom smells too (as another mentioned) - I smell things, mostly burning/fire smells, that aren't actually there. Sometimes perfume/floral too that aren't there.

4- Appetite gone. Food makes me want to throw up.

My appetite jetted off when I was on Elavil (Amitriptyline). I'd forget to eat, literally! Food doesn't make me want to throw up though, I'm not a doctor, but it sounds like that could be nerves doing that. It COULD be something else though, I know I get nauseous out of the blue, and if you suffer migraine, there you go!

5- Heat makes the vertigo/fatigue severely worse. Just want to run into the airconditioned home. Heat is awful.

Getting in a hot tub of water = glorious for my head. Being in heat and humidity from weather = dreadful, flare up of my sensory symptoms completely. I have to sleep with A/C on, if I don't I wake up half in relapse, literally.

6- Morning is the best time of day. I thrive for any time before 10:00. After that time of day I'm just useless. Is that just me?

I generally improve over the course of the day. I often wake up with head pains bad....at least the last while! I will say though, I suffer from burning mouth syndrome (3 years going strong, sigh) and it's much better in the AM than later at night (like now, lol!).

7- I lost 4 pounds this week without dieting.

If you're not able to enjoy food, and you're feeling sick when eating, this could explain the weight loss. Have you been eating less or physically sick?

8- Dazed/Fog Headed. Made toast yeasterday. Somehow I put the toast in toaster. Stood by toaster forgot what I was doing- dazed into the room- like I was in sort of a trance- realized it was 20 minutes later! Then realized- the toaster wasn't plugged in!!

I honestly have mistaken people for other people for the entirely of conversations before. It was during a period of preoccupation with my mind, thinking about the MS after I was newly diagnosed and scared stiff about relapsing (was having a bad MS day). It could be just that, you have a lot on your mind and you're forgetting mundane tasks in front of you. It could be cognitive. I know I forget stuff all the time because I get focused on 1 thing or daydreaming.

9- Problems swallowing. Stuttering. Slurred speach. Problems finding words to use when talking. Problems thinking. Problems doing simple math. Very embarrassing.

I was diagnosed with abnormal swallowing by a dental pain specialist before MS.

10-Simply embarrassed to walk. Vertigo so bad at times afraid to drive.

I went through horrible vertigo twice. I figure it was my MS doing it, but my neuro insists this was migraine or inner ear only. Well, it wasn't room spinning vertigo, it was vertical (up and down) vertigo. It followed my eyes when I blinked. Scary stuff! (ps: I've been a migraine sufferer since I was very young, 5-6 years old I had my first, I began having Trigeminal Neuralgia attacks at age 24/25)