Does this look like MS?
 

I'm sorry to be posting in this forum without having been diagnosed with MS, but I from people that do have it, I'd like to get some opinions on if you think this could be it.

Last fall after being awake for 30 min one morning I felt a painless "zing" feeling go through my head and then my head went numb. Then one side of my body went numb. I could still function properly, but one side just felt slightly weird and sensation was slightly less. Dr sent me to a neuro and my physical test came out fine, but he wanted to do an MRI anyway just to rule out MS as a possibility. Scans of brain and spine came out fine. All they saw was some minor arthritis in my neck. I was also having hair loss at the time, so they did tests for lupus, other autoimmunes, deficiencies and so on. Had an NCV test too. Everything was fine. After a couple months of going between my internist, neurologist and dermatologist they basically said it was.....stress/anxiety.

That happened Sept. 2011. By November 2011 I felt back to my normal self and by March 2012 my hair loss stopped and started regrowth process.

Now, after months of feeling great and "normal", and exactly 1 yr later, these are my new symptoms:

-Started w/ electric shock feeling in inner calf (localized, excruciatingly painful, lasting .25 seconds coming and going).
-Occasional pin prick sensations at various points around body
-occasional muscle twitch (painless)
-Hair loss (recurrent)
-Other abnormal sensations like getting the chills feeling internally, without goosebumps.
-Hands sometimes feel stiff in the mornings (not weak, other than the typical minor morning weakness while muscles are waking up), not painful, just have to open and close them a few times to get them feeling normal again
-One instance of wrist numbness (previous ncv showed slight possible carpel tunnel in this wrist but never had problems with it before)
-Recent right side of neck pain that radiated into upper back and head - sometimes w/ sharp pain behind eye. Started the other night when I randomly turned my head to the right and looked straight again and felt a high pitched click sound in ride side of head...still feel it when looking to the right.

My internist recently did some blood tests to check for mineral deficiencies but they came back normal. B12 was not included, however, but it was taken last year and was fine.

Just saw my neuro the other day but at the time I saw him I had only been experiencing the shocks and pin prick sensations so I didn't get to tell him of the other symptoms yet. Based on what I told him though he didn't think it was necessary to re-do my MRI brain/spine scans based on shocks alone, but this week I'm doing a lumbar MRI to see if something down there is causing the shocks and nerve pain.

I do suffer from anxiety. Not the kind where I'm afraid of or worry about every little thing in life, but I do have it when it comes to my health because I lost my mom to a sudden dx of cancer in 2010 and she appeared and felt perfectly healthy before being dx. 8 mo later she was gone. I carry a lot of guilt and grief with me still so a lot of my friends and family think I'm just stressed, but I don't know if I really believe that it can cause a myriad of symptoms such as this. Especially when they seem to come on even when I'm calm.

Thanks to anyone who has taken the time to read this. I appreciate it. My friends and family don't like to hear me "complain" as they say, about my pain because they think it's all in my head, so I'm feeling pretty lonely in this right about now.

Of course it's all in your head, most neurological illnesses are.:rolleyes: I hate it when Docs say that.:mad:

The short answer is yes, you could have MS or some other neurological disorder? In time, if it hasn't already, anxiety can and will trigger an attack of MS....not exactly cause MS but close.

Ask your Doc to cure your anxiety disorder to see if your other symptoms disappear. If not, then it must be in the Docs head and he should go back to the drawing board. :)

Take care and try to stay as calm as you can. Check back with us when your Doc wakes up..:hug:

I'm sorry you aren't doing well right now. There are lots of things that can mimic MS and sometimes a dx of MS as well as other illnesses can take some time. Keep a journal of your symptoms as it will help in the diagnosing process.

At this time, it seems as though your dr. are not finding any clinical symptoms that correlate to any specific disease/illness. The only thing they can chalk it up to is stress/anxiety. Anxiety attacks can hit at any time, whether we feel calm or not. Anxiety can also cause all sorts of wild symptoms. Check out this link that lists something like 100 anxiety symptoms (hair loss is one of them). http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms.shtml

Grief could definitely be contributing to some of your symptoms or exacerbating an underlying condition. Everyone grieves in their own way and in their own time. You can always see a grief counselor who can help you through what you are feeling.

Remember, keep a journal of your symptoms, i.e., date/time, what the symptom was, and how long it lasted. This will really be helpful when you go back to the dr. Let us know how you are doing and how the MRI went. I hope all goes well for you and they are able to dx you quickly so that you can be treated accordingly.:hug::hug:

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with Freshmanitis. I haven't been diagnosed with MS either, but some of the questions my Neuro has asked makes me wonder, we haven't discussed the potential shown in MRI's. (We thought I might have been having TIA's or another bleed from time to time.)

So I look up symptoms and what my doc has said and of course I self diagnose. I have an appointment on the 16 so I am going to broach the subject. It would almost be nice to have them DX it so I know why I feel like this. Good luck to you.