Well, my neurologist is kinda in the dark about all this. The MRI results will be sent to him. I'm sure he's going to soon know that I'm going FOR the MRI, but it's the GP who's ordering it.

The headaches are not new, but since they're almost daily, along with the burning pain (heck, burning mouth since June or July of 2007) they want to explore the brain stem area. It was never imaged originally.

I don't know what they'll find there. In a way part of me is hoping "oh, a mass that they can remove maybe!!" and symptoms will go away. But a mass of whatever can also be very bad, and if it's in the brain stem, perhaps inoperable.

In any event... we've pretty much ruled out a blood disease/anything to be detected in the blood. Now we move on to other areas I guess .

It seems likely you had brainstem involvement early on, given your symptoms from the get-go, so it makes sense they get a baseline.

Good luck, Laura . . . and hopefully everything is relatively stable.

Cherie

Thanks hun

I told my GP that my spine was never imaged, and I'm certain I have activity to note there.. but she didn't seem to think imaging the spine was that important at this time (and maybe not, based on my persistent symptoms).

If things weren't crummy enough, I woke up after 1 hour of sleep last night, to a vicious migraine. So bad I was gagging from nausea for 30 min and decided to visit the ER. It's amazing how fast they whip you in through the place when you go in clutching your head, eyes blood shot and probably as pale as a ghost.

They had to go through 2 bags of migraine meds before I began to feel relief. You think steroids are bad, the migraine medication (if you haven't had it before) is the pits in comparison. Steroids are bad, but this stuff dried out my mouth AND tasted awful as heck. Thank goodness for Trident freshmint.

Oh, wow, Laura. I'm so sorry. I think I've told you that the girlfriend of a friend of mine is a neurologist whose specialty is migraines. I think I'm going to see them in the next couple of weeks so let me know if there's something you want me to ask her.

I actually didn't know this, or at least remember you telling me about it. But we've discussed a lot so you probably did before

I know what you can ask her... why is it that I had auras back in 2000 about 4 times, but never again saw them? I never had headache with them, but it has been a mystery to me why I've never again experienced it (not the flashing lights, but 1 eye going gradually gray to losing all sight in it, and seeing what appeared like a crescent moon in my eye for about 20-30 minutes, and then gradually it just disappeared and my eyesight returned.

I understand they are related to migraine, but why would I experience that during a specific time frame, never to experience it again (thankfully)? Are auras attributed to certain things (food, environment)?

I may have just posted about it on the board in response to some previous discussions about migraines. She was the one who told me that migraines can be secondary to MS (I think someone's MS doctor had said no) and also that while not common, it is absolutely possible for lesions from migraines and MS to mimic each other.

I'll let you know before I see her and make sure that I understand the question(s) well enough so I can ask her in a comprehensive way!

I've got some brainfog happening today (too much going on around here these days), but I wanted to say that I'm sorry to hear you had such a terrible headache last night. That must have been very bad for you to take yourself into a Canadian ER on a Saturday night and I hope you are feeling better today!!

Laura, please push your docs to get an emergency MRI, because you are feeling bad enough to warrant one. Your employer might even agree to pay the $500 cost for one at a private clinic, given how affected you are with migraines, etc.

Most of my headaches have been the spinal cord type, which start in the back of my skull/neck. Apparently I get migraines too, because I had all the "signs"; require darkness, waves in vision, can't open eyes, etc. . . . but the pain from them doesn't really register as "pain". My eye specialist called them "painless migraines", but I wonder now if most of the symptoms were actually caused by ON.

I saw a neuro-opthomologist recently, and she confirmed Uhtfhoff's in my left eye, plus "old" damage to the nerve to my left eye . . . so apparently I went through ON without knowing that's what it was. The only time I can remember eye problems was back in 2004, and that is when I was the eye specialist who said it was likely migraine-related.

I'm just telling you that story because it is possible that your headaches are related to ON, and you might want to have that checked.

Cherie

You know, when I read about ON, that was the first thing I thought of... the auras I had and a potential link to ON (maybe I had ON long, long ago!).

I really should get my eyes checked, even if my neuro thinks I don't have ON, and told me the auras are migraine.

I can imagine lesion from migraine mimicking MS. I did have the positive spinal tap as well for o-bands. Of course, those o-bands can show up in other conditions as well.