Erin, I hope you feel better and get some good sleep. You sure are a great typist. Wow I'm impressed.

I took typing classes in high school. (manual and electric, back in the mid-80s) One of the few classes that year that I got an A in.

Then I took a bunch of classes at a community college to be a medical transcriptionist...just before the MS kicked in at high gear. We had contests in the keyboarding classes to see who could type the fastest. I was third fastest, but had the best accuracy. Last year when my hands went numb and my pinky fingers could barely move depressed me so much. I love to type and write a little. My handwriting has always sucked, but my typing is usually pretty good. It was like having someone gag me.

Now I do typing tests on the internet for fun and as a way to try to keep my fingers moving (along with crocheting and knitting) I'm not as accurate as I used to be. My eyes get lost in the text that I'm typing from more often now.

I may still try to get my medical transcription certificate. If the MS would leave me alone long enough to finish the classes.

Glad you are better hydrated. Dehydration can really mess with you. Your body needs water to operate properly. Smart of you to figure that out.


Feel better!

woke up this morning feeling dry as a desert. Everything numb. Guess I shouldnt have decided to suck down a couple of bottles of Coke last night instead of H20.

I've finished one bottle of water for breakfast/lunch (havent eaten yet today) and feeling a little better. I guess I'm going to start saving money by not buying pop as often anymore.

It's winter now, and snowing outside. I guess the humidity must not be very high and it's drying me out.

I hope you feel better, Erin. Most certainly water is much better to be drinking than Sodas... I switched to red grape juice over a year ago. water it down some so get a good vitamin packed juice and water all in one.

hugs & love,

I think I just figured out what part of this is...and I want to beat my head against the wall that it took me so long to recognize the symptom.

When I had steroids in 2009, I had a bit of edema for a few months after I was done with them. Had to do a lot of exercising (treadmill walking mostly) to help that go away. I'm really wondering if this is edema again. Feels like it!


Last summer, after having steroids I again had a bunch of edema, also made worse from the neurontin that I was taking back then. (neurontin makes my feet swell up) Later last summer, I was taking lyrica (which is chemically similar to neurontin) and my whole body swelled up with edema. It was pretty strong right at the small of my back where I've got it now.

I did steroids just before Xmas (oral) and I'm now starting to wonder if this is leftover edema from having the steroids. My feet have been swollen since around the time I was taking the steroids, and now I'm wondering if the fact that I feel like I did when I was taking lyrica (full body puffiness and some weird feeling numbness that doesnt quite feel the same as when the MS makes me numb) would be the edema getting worse because I havent done anything to help the swelling the steroids give me to move along and it's gotten worse and moved up to my low back.

I've been drinking my water, and that seems to helping some, but I still feel...full. Left ankle is pretty chunky. I think I'm going to start exercising at the gym tomorrow (recumbent bike) and see if I can get my doctor to see me sooner than his nurse said I could.

I've had this happen a couple of times now, you'd think I'd recognize the signs instead of immediately leaping at the MS excuse.

The thing that made me realize tonight that it's probably edema is the pain around the left thigh that I've got right now. When that got really bad back when I had the edema from the lyrica, it was the biggest clue I had a problem.

Since we had a snowpocalypse and an icemageddon the past couple of days and the wind is blowing so hard we have snow-nadoes swirling around in the street I cant exactly go outside and walk it off. I started walking in place some tonight, and climbing up and down the stairs and putting my feet up. I think I need to get my doctor involved on this one.

I hope that there isnt any other medication involved in this. Anyone know if baclofen or valium can cause edema?

You say you've been "popping" baclofen and valium like M and M's. If it were me doing that, I'd have the spasticity in my back and the MS hug type of pressure you describe. But of course I have Porphyria which makes me sensitive to those drugs--it is quite possible you are also sensitive to them whether or not you have Porphyria. You also react badly to steroids and Lyrica, as I did. All of these drugs would make me very spastic and Lyrica would give me the "hug" in spades.

I just wish you could get off some of these drugs. I don't mean ALL drugs, but somehow you may be taking more than you need and they may giving you side effects.
My worst symptom up until recently has been spasticity, and these drugs give me that.

I take Klonopin in very small dose, to which I react entirely better than to Valium. Perhaps a change to Klonopin, a different drug of the same class, would help. It helps spasticity and shakiness. I would also take some magnesium, calcium (at a different time than the magnesium) and some Vitamin D3. The magnesium was recommended to me by a neuro when I could not take Baclofen, to ease spasticity and jerkiness. And it worked. I take 900 mg a day, a large dose, in two doses.

The burning feet has been my recent bug-a-boo, too, neuropathy. I have no cure for that except time.

May you soon find coordination and peace.

Mariel