facial numbness...ms?
 

Hi folks.
I amgetting increasingly worried that i may have ms.I have had bilateral facial numbness for the last two years and occasionally get bouts of ear and eye pain and burning in my nostrils and sometimes a bit of numbness in my right hand (though this seems to be related to using a keyboard, picking up heavy objects .It's worse on the left side of my face.I have no other symptoms.I have seen two neuros, the last about a year ago when i had a contrast MRI which did not show any lesions. They say it's not trigeminal neuralgia. At present it's just been diagnosed as a 'benign malfunction of the CNS' with the cause not known. It's not really painful, more iritating but it has spread since it started. With MS would the symptoms be constant at onset? Does this sound likeMS? Shouldi be asking for another MRI? Just don't know what to do.

Look into thoracic outlet syndrome. I have both ms and thoracic outlet syndrome. My face would do the same thing, and using a keyboard and picking up heavy objects can cause a flare up for tos. I had one surgery for tos, and I can say that the face tingling and eye twitching and ear pain has pretty much stopped on the side that I had the surgery.

TN can be a stand alone dx, just like Optic Neuritis, Transverse Myeltis, etc., but can also be as a resulting of an underlying disease process like MS.

My sister gets TN, and she is dx with Fibromyalgia. Of course they considered MS for her, but they've been watching her MRI's for 20 yrs and there has never been any lesions show up.

It seems that it must be the Trigeminal Nerve that is affected to cause this numbness/pain, so I wonder how they have determined it is not "labeled" TN (even if that's "all" it is) in your case ...?

Cherie

Thank you for your replies. The neuro letter says that because the numbness/pain is not localised to one or two branches of the trigeminal nerve on just one side of my face means that i do not have trigeminal neuralgia. From my own reading it seems TN is far more rare to see bilaterally and is usually the result of MS, hence my concerns. The TOS suggestion is very interesting as at the start of all this i had neck and shoulder pain. I stopped weight training and it got better over time. Would that explain facial symptoms though? I just did a quick google and it only mentioned hand/arm/neck/shoulder symptoms though you said your face was affected.

I'm experiencing something similar. It all started with Retrobulbar optic neuritis few weeks ago, when my eyesight was worst, just after I had taken vitamins (B1, B6, B12), before I was admited to hospital and treated with IV solumedrol. Due to retrobulbar neuritis, CT and MRI of brain was done (non-contrast and contrast), VEP, EEG, perimetry. MRI showed nothing, VEP was surprisingly normal too. LP showed one O-Band and proteins (myelin?), no infection was found. Two weeks ago I stopped taking the B vitamins but it didn't stop, and that ruled out the possibility of it being somehow caused by B vitamins. I continue to take vitamin D3 they gave me.

It first started below ear, just above jaw bone on both sides simultaneuously and lasted several hours. I attributed it to the vitamins I took as it didn't repeat for almost 2 weeks. Then it returned, but wasn't always localized to the same spot like before, but spread to the whole jaw and cheeks. It always occurs on both sides, there is no tingling, no burning sensation, it mostly resembles anesthetic wear off, but can last several hours. When its most intense, there is very mild pain below ear. The feeling seems to be just below the skin, but not in the jaw or near teeth. It seems to be triggered by lower temperatures and movement. When I go to sleep it stops. When its hot outside (as it is right now), its much weaker or doesn't occur at all. Sometimes I get similar feeling in right arm and hand, but it occurs 90% in the face.

When it was cold here I could feel it in the face almost all day, and my mother convinced me to visit ER. The ER visit only resulted in embarasment as they didn't find the cause of my problems. They checked the MRI I had 1 month ago again, but didn't find anything suspicious and don't think its related to the retrobulbar neuritis I had. But my but feeling tells me they are wrong, as it started at the same time. It seems I will have to wait for more symptoms or until it disappears by itself as they don't know what to do with it.

Hi, wildhorse64, welcome to the community! Frustrating, isn't it? Sometimes waiting for more symptoms is all you can do, unless your PCP can suggest another type of specialist? My first symptoms were mild TN and a small area of numbness near my upper right lip. It was a couple of years before more symptoms presented themselves.