Progressive vibrations and Balance Issues - Help
 

I'm having some serious issues right now.

I was diagnosed with neuropathy after a severe cold in July.

I was treated with IVIG which gave asceptic menigitis. had some ear inflammation where vibrations hurt my head. Afterwards I left blocked in left ear.

For some reason I have immense tremors spread from my left foot up to my thigh and now the rest of body. These vibrations would happen when I placed body part on a surface for a few seconds. My head would also start moving left to right.

I also developed gait issues where I feel unbalanced like the room is going side to side. My spine is weak and I walk fall to the right side. Woke up with heavier spine and legs.

At hospital. Just gave me propanolol and eliminate gabapentin and put on ssri. No MRI done and I am getti g worse. Any suggestions please let me know.

Do you have an actual diagnosis of MS? The reason I ask is because MS symptoms can mimic other conditions symptoms making it difficult to diagnosis without specific testing being done.

Have you mentioned the symptoms you're having right now to the doctor that diagnosed the neuropathy? Why did they say they put you on an SSRI? Did they diagnose depression? Was your doctor that diagnoseed the neuropathy a neurologist?

They may be using the Ssri to treat the neuropathy. I take cymbalta and occasionally lorazepam for my physical nerves. Get a vibrating feeling like I’m being electrocuted without the burn of electric shock... hard to explain... but regardless, used to take gabapentin for it but it caused interaction with my baclofen pump so they switched to the cymbalta daily and lorazepam as needed.

But anyways, back to the original issue, did the doctor diagnosing you tell you whether it was peripheral neuropathy or cns neuropathy?

Some sort of radiology scan is needed be it an X-ray, ct scan or mri. An emg test would also be good to try and discover if the nerve damage is peripheral (being in the limbs themselves) or CNS (being a disruption in the brain or spinal cord)

Having menegitis suggests there may have been some damage to the CNS. It does not sound as though MS should be a concern at this point however, but doesn’t change the fact that a neurologist should be reviewing your case while you are in the hospital. If one hasn’t already been around request one while you are there.

1.) don't panic

2.) I agree with kitty and starz, you need some more testing, and to me, even with a complete lack of any medical training, an mri seems in order. While it may not provide a cause it may help to eliminate some.

3.) My diagnosis took almost 3 years, I saw a number of different doctors, pcps, an infectious disease specialist and like 4 different neurologists, all except the last neurologist, a ms specialist, seemed content to apply labels to my condition rather than do the proper testing to find the correct label.

4,) If you have mris done? get the mri reports, you may want to see what is actually in them, and not just joe neuros interpretation of them. My first mri was of my brain, and it showed abnormalities. My first joe neuro took them to be small strokes and made no mention of the fact that it mentioned in the report that " given the location a demyelinating disease isn't entirely excluded "
5.) mri #2 was of my cervical spine, and it clearly showed lesions, and they were noted in the mri report. Again, with no medical training it seemed to me that given the results of mris 1&2 a mri of my thoracic spine seemed to be warranted, joe neuros 1 - 2 - 3 had different views, they were content with labels that didn't seem to fit.

6.) Don't be content with a label unless it fits, and certainly don't be content with joe neuro telling you no further testing is needed or necessary if you are progressing.

JMHO

I agree with Sleeper. The only thing I'll add is this. Make sure the MRI you get is with and without contrast. There's not much point in getting one if you don't get the two different versions. You might have to be insistent about it but I wouldn't waste my time or money unless it was with contrast.