Describe how you went numb?
 

Can we share how we go numb? Here's mine:

I woke up on a Monday, and I felt a pain in my back shoulder blade. It bothered me for about two hours. I streached out, and rubbed it. It was centered there and it hurt. I kept moving my neck hoping it would stop. It didn't. Then, as I was on the computer, I noticed that my left thumb went numb. To the point I could not feel anything. That lasted for about a week. Later, it went up to my elbow. Pins and needles. Very annoying. Then it went up under my arm pit and to the shoulder. Stayed like that for days. Then it went to my neck, jaw and face. Then it moved down my left breast, to my stomach area, all on the left side. Thats when I finally freaked out. At its worst, I was fully numb, at its best, it was pins and needles. After 6 weeks of this, it subsided, and worked its way back down in reverse. Finally, about the two month level, it went back to just my thumb to my elbow. Stayed like that for weeks. Finally, and where I am now, is buzzing in both hands and feet, up my legs. It's not normal, that I'm sure of.

That's what brought me to the forums.

How did you go numb?

PS: I had Vertigo, really bad, about a month before this happened, along with cog symptoms, balance issues, trip/falls, miss stairs, drop things that started last summer.

I was at the zoo with my boyfriend. Our zoo has a steam engine train that goes around the whole park.

My boyfriend works with his dad in a model train store. He knows several of the engineers who work at the zoo on the train. So, that day one of his friends was there, and they were so cool to give us free rides on the train, and then allowed both me and my boyfriend to ride on the engine. We had to ride separately because there was only room for the two engineers and one other person. It was early April and it was unseasonably warm. It was also extremely hot standing behind the furance in the engine.

I got off the train, and me and my boyfriend went to sit down by the lagoon and just watch the ducks and the monkeys on Monkey Island. I noticed that my thigh was a bit numb and my wallet in my pocket felt strange against my leg.

I thought that I had hurt myself getting on and off the train. I had tripped getting onto the train car earlier, and then also tripped getting off. I tripped getting off the engine too, which was a lot higher up, and I landed hard.

It was weird, and extremely annoying. The numbness spread during the next few months to both hips, both thighs, and to my right knee. I also had a lot of pain in my right hip because I apparently hurt myself when I landed hard getting off the engine. I couldnt get anyone to pay attention to the numbness. I just kept getting told it was a sprain and to put heat on it. :confused: :mad: :(

I have been having trouble with numb feet for about twenty five years. :eek:
I really do not remember the circumstances. I know that numbness in my toes became apparent and I went to the doctor who offered the explanation that it was the capillaries shutting down because I smoked.
The next time I really paid attention was when I felt a constriction in my chest after I had taken a fall while visiting New York City in the spring of
2002. ( my home town. :D)

It was strange because it was only happening on my right side.
I was starting to get worried when this squeezing seemed to be traveling up into my neck and down my right arm.
Mind you, I still had the partially numb feet that I was totally ignoring and had been for many years. I was subsequently diagnosed in the spring of 2003.

Anyhoo, to make a very long story short, my numbness has continued and now I am numb from my waist down on my right side and from my knee down on my left side.

It is a gradual process. However, it has not progressed since my neurologist had me tested for a B12 deficiency and found I was in desperate straits in that department. :eek:
He put me on sub lingual B12 and now I live with a peripheral neuropathy that cannot be reversed. :( Plus I have MS. I guess it could be worse.

I woke up, one morning, after a very stressful event and my face was numb. I just thought it was caused by the stress and never told anyone. I was 24. It came to pass that, that was my first MS symptom that I can remember.

That went away in short time and then nothing until my 28th Birthday party. I was imbibing, of course and when I was dancing the Jitterbug, my left arm and hand went numb. I blamed it on the alcohol and again, blew it off.:rolleyes:

It seems like my numbnesses did not build, but came on, rather suddenly, without warning. :eek: When I was finally DX at 34 or 35, I had numbness in my legs, especially my thighs. That lasted for a couple of months and then I went into remission until the numbness hit me again when I was 51.

The numbness since then has been pretty constant. Sometimes bad and sometimes not so bad, but never really went away, after that. I now have some constant numbness, mostly on my left side. I am SPMS.

I'm not sure when my numbness began, but I first started noticing a problem when I kept biting the inside of my lip on the left side. I realized it was numb - at least to the touch - hurt like heck when I bit it! Then I noticed my toes were numb during my workoutt, and when I wiped the sweat off my face, my face was numb... Then my right hand got really numb, and my right leg... Then I started noticing that I was completely numb on my back from the bra strap down, and around my neck...

Most of the numbness has remained from my last flare. My back is still numb, as well as my neck, my toes, parts of my right hand, my chin, etc.

Even tho I'm not DX I'll still tell you how I got to thinking it was MS and put me into a search for a DX on what's going on with me.

About 4 years one day I was driving to the store with a friend of my that had MS (I didn't really know what it was at the time, I didn't even know they had numbness, we hadn't been friends long) and I was telling her I felt like my belly was numb. She asked what some of my SX were (she know I had Fibro) and I told her (slurred speech, loss of word, memory loss, dizziness, IBS, etc) , she didn't say anything. We get to the store and I check to see if I'm really numb while still in the van. I was numb from the very top of my tights to my lower ribs all the way around. She goes Hmmm, I go WHAT? She said I have had that a lot. We get out of the van, she said look down all the way, "OK" I say and I did, :holysheep: I had a pain run down my back. I said what the xxx, she laughed and said it was nick named "the barber shop buzz". Than she asked if I had ever been tested for MS. That numbness stayed about a month, after a week the area of numbness got smaller and smaller until it was gone.

Well I go to the Dr for testing and after blood work and an MRI (with-out contrast) I'm told, it's not MS must just be the fibro. :confused:

I didn't really have much happen until the end of Dec. last year, just slurred speech that would come and go, dizziness that would come and go, odd tingling that would come and go (like a bug crawling on you), small areas of numbness (hands mostly). And looking back now it was the summer time when it would act up more, this is the 1st time I have had a lot going on in the winter. :confused:

How did you first go numb?
 

It is 37 years ago for me but I remember quite well.

It was in the early 1970's when sophisticated diagnostic techniques didn't exist.

Numbness wasn't my first experience but so often symptoms come in clusters and with me a few things happen in tandom.

My first MS episode involved problems using my right hand. That lasted a week or so then more or less went away. I was referred to an old neurologist who made no diagnosis.

Then within a month I woke up to numbness from the bottom of my rib cage down. It was quite mild at first but got worse, until if felt as though the whole of my lower body was encased in plaster. That lasted a couple of months and then slowly disappeared. I didn't return to the neurologist.

Strangely, I knew it was MS. I was just 22/23 at the time. Another woman at work a few months earlier had what was called then 'disseminated sclerosis' and I knew intuitively that I had the same.

I had an eight year remission, however, and the MS was definitively diagnosed when I had two attacks of optic neuritis in 6 months.

I think my first dealings with the numbness was a patch about as big as my hand in the middle of my right thigh, no reason for it to be like that and it lasted for hours, then disappeared. That went on for a few months, haven`t had problems with it since.

Now the issue is numbness a lack of feeling in my feet, more the left foot, but the right is joining in slowly. Makes it a little hard to take a step, not real sure of foot position and what the surface feel is. It helps if I watch my feet when I walk just to be sure what they are up too.

I noticed the numbness about 3 years ago the spot is at end of my neck goes down to btw both of my shoulder blades I have a spinal lesion btw C-2 and C-3 there so I know that's what it's from as to how I went numb I don't really remember me going slowing numb or anything like that, I think I just went totally numb one day and that was it.I'm pretty sure this numbness is permanent unfortunately.

the day that my numbness began is forever etched in my memory.

I was wearing my new pair of sport sandals (ALPs leather, with long blue criss-crossing laces, for water activities) at work, to break them in.

the leather is supposed to be soaked in water, then the laces tightened, which makes the sole mold to your unique footprint, and that helps keeps you stable when river rafting and boating.

following the instructions, I soaked 'em, laced 'em up, and began my day.

a few hours later, I was rounding a corner in the shipping dept. at work, when I *banged* my right foot into a pallet.

I immediately realized that although my foot SLID a bit inside the sandal, I didn't FEEL it...

took off the sandal, and felt my foot... my toes ached, but I couldn't feel the SOLE of my foot at ALL... hmmmm... that's weird!

within four days, the numbness had spread up my right leg, started similarly in my left, proceeded up BOTH sides to my waist, and stopped there, with a really TIGHT band around my waist.

I got my diagnosis the next week.

I've been numb so many times and in so many different ways.

The first time it started in my left foot and traveled up that side till it reached mid-breast. Then the right side started, and went up as high as just below my right breast.

After I healed, I would get intermittent numb patches.

Several years later, my soles went numb and it traveled to up over my chest. Other parts of my body were effected including my internal organs. Not nice. :mad:

The third time, it was the right side of my body only.

The next time it was the roof of my mouth, tongue, lips, throat.

This past time, it was my torso, plus my hands.

"Life is like a box of chocolates . . . you never know what you are going to get." :D

Cherie

both feet were numb
 

Both of my feet were becoming numb. The numbness was moving up both legs. I had a scare when one pain doctor that I was seeing for my back suggested it could be diabetes, since he didn't see anything in my MRI that could affect both feet. That is what got me proactive in finding a new primary care physician. From there the ball started to roll....long story short... no diabetes...."just" ms.

Both of my legs went numb in 2003. I remember waking up and thinking mmmm....this feels weird. I could walk but it felt like my legs were asleep (both of them). Pins and needles feeling but that subsided within a few days but the numbness was still there. Thought I had pinched a nerve.

By the time I had made an appt with the doctor, was seen, referred to another doctor, etc. the sensation had gone away. I figured it had resolved itself and went on about my business.

Fast forward to October 2005 I had a BAD bout with diplopia (double vision). Bad to the point of me not even being able to stand up without assistance.

That was what earned me my dx of MS. I was relieved - it was actually a joy to receive that dx. I had done Internet research and concluded that I had a brain tumor. Luckily, it wasn't. MS was my preferred dx because everything else I found that it could have been was much worse.

I have numbness in my right hand/arm now. My whole right side went numb in October 2007 (3 months ago). Now it's down to basically just my hand but it's MUCH better and getting better every day. My fingers are affected the worst right now but I can write and type easier than I could at first.

Your numbness, Greenjeans, sounds like classic MS to me but I am no doctor. What does your doctor have to say about it?

The flare that started my path to being diagnosed was tremors in the right side. Foot, calf, and hand were the worst. When the shaking stopped, the numbness took it's place.

It's almost like my brain rewired to keep the tremors from happening by numbing everthing. :rolleyes:

For me, my whole left leg felt like rubber and I could not use it well. I was picking up supplies for work and was in the parking lot at Office Max. Too the supplies back to work. Luckily for me, I was only working a 1/2 day that day as it was the 1st day of school for DDs and I wanted to spend the afternoon with them.

I had a manual car at the time and really couldn't tell if my foot was on the clutch at all. I managed to get DDs and get home.

Since that time I have gone numb in other ways as well. Sometimes I would get that burning feeling. Sometimes I was completely unaware that I was numb until I burnt myself, saw blood on my finger from a paper cut, etc.

My numbness began in my left thumb...very minor. Now it encompasses my entire left hand and some of my right.

My neuro is not convinced this is entirely MS. So don't count entirely on that. With the shoulder blade pain or cramp you described it could also be spinal problems, injury or something else. Of course it can also be MS.

It's a matter of eliminating other possibilities.

I've had a dx since 1995. Things have only recently gotten worse and frankly I don't entirely think it's MS. So you never know.

Age (in my case, I'm 63) certainly brings more 'stuff' your way unless you are very, very lucky. Everything from your past comes back to haunt or hurt you (falls, sports injuries, childhood illness, lifestyle, etc.).

So I'm finding out what's what to the best of my ability. Sort of like 'connect the dots'.

Tootsie:)

wow, I gotcha on THAT one!

I was very sad to give up my old Dodge Colt Vista manual tranny... 'cause I'm a bit of a controlling type, and hated the way automatics shift themselves, especially during windy-road foothill driving... drove me bonkers.

but the numbness, combined with weakness, well, I could hardly tell my foot was on the pedal, PLUS, I couldn't hold the clutch in for an entire stoplight wait.

and my right arm started having trouble shifting... hand numbness and weakness.

so, I got a little Subaru Forrester with an automatic tranny... and managed to keep on driving for another three years thata-way.

:winky:

ok,I mainly went numb at first only for 5 minutes or so,in my finger,lips,and toes.This was at onset.
I have had it where Im reaching for somthing,and my whole arm would go numb.
But gosh,your story is freaky....
that would really freak me out.

I thougth that too Tootsie. That's why I didn't run to the doctor for the first week or more. I have a spine doctor now and MRI's of C & L spine, and the only area that has varifiable issues is my L-spine. Totally unrelated to anything I experienced. Definately have to work on fixing this problem, and in PT for that. All the doc's say it was not a pinched nerve. Thta's why MS became an issue.

That would seem to be the conclussion huh? My tests will not support a dx tho.

I do want to thank everyone for posting their experience here....it shows how very different it is for each person. I did read someone once say they had the same pain in their shoulder blade before going numb in their thumb too (been a while ago). Therapist and PCP are not finding reason to believe that stress caused this....so I'm just a complete mystery.....and until I know for sure, MS will always be in the back of my mind.