Hi I am new here, my name is Bill. I was diagnosed with Cervical Dystonia April 2014, and its taken until November to get Botox. All the other meds that my neurologist tried failed, and he sent me to a movements disorder specialist October 2014. The specialist put me Artane for the spasms, Gralise for neurological pain and scheduled me for Botox. Since they I have been improving and my 3rd round of Botox is in a couple weeks, I can't wait! Now the down side: since about January I noticed the lymph nodes in my neck had started annoy me, not quite itching or pain, just a sensation that caused me to want to rub them. They were inflamed and palpable. Then shortly after that I've been having very strange symptoms that come about when I rubbed the lymph nodes: tightness in chest and a feeling like I am breathing in dust; shooting pains through teeth (upper and lower but never both at same time); shooting pains in groin, upper pecs, behind knee, and toes; electric like "shocks" running down abdomen and legs (these are very quick and dont last); itchy skin, and sometimes pins and needles in my arm. I've asked the movement specialists and they said these symptoms are not there area of expertise, and referred me to my neurologist. Of course I did web searches and so some similarity to MS but not a dead on match. My neurologist specializes in MS and said 100% I dont have it. He felt it may be anxiety even though I've never had an anxiety problem before and I work in a very stressful job. I've had MRI of my brain and EMG, all negative. He suggested I work with my PCP for further tests, I had CT scan of lymph nodes which came back clean. Just got a full blood workup, waiting for results. These weird symptoms only come from rubbing my neck (anywhere on neck). If I can control myself and not touch my neck the symptoms fade away completely but are immediately brought back by the lightest rub. Showering, washing face, shaving all bring on the symptoms a bit. My question is has anyone else here with cervical dystonia ever experienced this? For further background I have a lot of metal in my neck, have had 4 surgeries for cervical fusions from ruptured discs, the 4th was through back to bolt down my entire cervical spine since it wasnt healing properly. My PCP said with all of the trauma, metal and now botox added in that maybe there's some sort of combination of things. My only issue is it goes away unless I rub my neck.
Sorry for the long post!