Here is a list of my symptoms, anyone else?

[DaisyP]

So tonight I am having a particularly anxious evening, my husband is out and it just feels like i have more time to think...

I wanted to write my list of symptoms because i feel like i am going out of my mind...

* Feeling confused - i am looking after my sisters dog tonight and i couldn't remember for a few seconds whether he was a boy or a girl
* I felt like i couldn't co-ordinate my fork to go to my mouth when i was eating dinner
* arms feel weak
* floaters
* ache in back of neck
* pins and needles in my feet (yesterday was in my right all day and today it's in my left)
* shakiness
* weird sensations over my body, every now and then a patch will just contract?
* twitching
* pain in eye

Seriously, i am driving myself insane. I just want to cry.

I have my neuro appt on wednesday which i want to get over and done with, i am so scared she will say she thinks it could be MS. I had an MRI done in June last year and it was clear and i had similar symptoms but this time they feel more extreme. I am worried sick i have MS. Be good to speak to anyone x

[Serenity1990]

Aww Daisy, the feet pins and needles swapping sides and the weird symptoms migrating around your body are pretty much completely incompatible with what you fear, which (if I recall correctly) your neuro/doctor explained to you. You had a completely clear MRI as well didn't you?

[DaisyP]

Hi Serenity,

I am in full grip of it again :( It's the only thing i ever fear. I am so much better than i used to be but i cannot cope with this again.

I keep repeating to myself that it doesn't migrate like it's doing on me but what if I am one of those weird cases which doesn't follow a pattern?

Yes my MRI was completely fine and normal. What if something has developed since then or they missed it?

[Serenity1990]

So you mean what if these same symptoms weren't caused by MS last time but are this time? Read that back, what do you think?

What weird cases that don't follow a pattern? I'm sure you'll find some people on the Internet who claim such things. However the most likely explanation for this is these people have something else going on (such as anxiety - MS sufferers get it just like everyone else does), that people making such claims were misdiagnosed (it does happen, in fact you're more likely to be told you do have it when you don't than that you don't have it when you do), or thay such people haven't really been diagnosed with it (think about it, how many people lurking on such forums without a diagnosis really belong on here?).

I think because you've been categorically told you don't have it you need to start to accept that. That's not to say your symptoms aren't caused by a real disease: they are. One you've been diagnosed with in fact. Anxiety. The bad news is this is a horrible disease that can take over your life. The good news is it's a disease that you have it within yourself to overcome. It's just up to you when you start the fight. Reassurance seeking is not part of this fight.

---------- Post added at 20:35 ---------- Previous post was at 20:33 ----------

Just to add, I used to be over the moon when my synptoms migrated. I used to call it "beasty ****ing up".

[DaisyP]

I think i once read somewhere that someones MS just started with pins and needles and now i have that fixated in my head :(

How did you accept it? My arms feel so shaky tonight. The pins and needles feel a bit like when normal pins and needles starts to wear off and is really tickly. Would MS present itself like this?

[Serenity1990]

I can't answer specifics about how symptoms feel, I've never had MS. Yes, MS can start with tingling (though it's not one of the more common presenting synotoms as I understand it). However, as you are well aware, it would not migrate. Migrating tingling is common in anxiety, which you know you have. What is the logic of obsessing over a disease for which your scans have been negative, your doctors say you don't have, and your pattern of symptoms would be highly incompatible with, when you know full well you have an illness which causes exactly the symptoms you describe in exactly this pattern? It's this objectivity loss you need to overcome.

Ask yourself this. What is the probability of having an illness where your (highly accurate) scans are negative, your doctors don't think it's a possibility, your presentation of symptoms are very atypical of the disease, and you know you have something else which is the most common cause of your symptoms? If you're familiar with the concept of conditional probability you probably have a lower probability of having it than the general population right now.

[DaisyP]

I think it's more that i cannot get my head around anxiety causing this many symptoms and that because of that it MUST be something more sinister because it feels so debilitating?

What you are saying makes me complete sense, it honestly does and i tell other people who are scared of having MS the exact same thing you're telling me but i don't believe myself at all. I Am sitting on the sofa right now and because my legs are up i have pins and needles in my left foot.

I just cannot understand how these symptoms can be anxiety

With BFS, does that cause numbness do you know?

[Serenity1990]

Yes it can do. My experience of BFS is the most common symptoms are fasciculations, tingling, buzzing, crawling sensations, etc. It can cause numbness too, but personally I don't get that anywhere near as much as the others. The other thing is any nerve impingement is greatly exaggerated. Resting my arm on the armrest in my car causes the arm to go numb and difficult to move. Sitting on the toilet makes my legs buzz like mad. Slight tightness in my neck causes the most incredible pressure in my head. That sortnof thing.

I forget, are you a twitcher?

[DaisyP]

Oh ok, that sounds like me. My nerves are ridiculously sensitive. I will get pins and needles or tingling if i sat funny for a few minutes!

Yes, i twitch a lot. Eye, calf, arm, muscles in stomach...not when i flex the muscle though, it stops.

[Serenity1990]

Well the Wikipedia page for BFS states the presence of fasciculations strongly point away from a diagnosis of MS. Read it if you don't believe me. I have also read this in many medical criteria for the diagnosis of MS (back in my googling days, I DO NOT suggest anyone reads these), and in many research papers written by professors in neurology (so whilst Wikipedia isn't generally the best source I think you can certainly trust it on this occasion). So you can add that to your list of things diminishing your probability of having what you fear to as close as zero as is possible.

Ready to start treating the illness you actually do have yet?

[DaisyP]

So an MRI, numerous examinations, eye examinations, a neurology appt should take my chances down to 0 right?

I feel like I'm obsessed. I keep thinking im going to get foot drop because of the pins and needles?

Thing is someone said to me 'oh my friend had symtoms like that and it was a brain tumour' and I literally laughed it off. I am not scared of anything anymore but it's just MS. What is it with that?

I do need to treat my anxiety.

Serenity with your Bfs, would you get pins and needles in your feet if you had them up on the sofa say?

I never knew that about the twitching and MS connection - or lack of connection - do you know why that's the case? Why do we twitch?

[Serenity1990]

Right now I have pins and needles in my face, and my left foot is burning, but five minutes ago it was the right foot. Actually thinking about it now it's moving to my left shin. I'm lying on a sofa in a position probably not dissimilar to yours!

Twitching in BFS is hyperexcitabillity of the peripheral nerves. Doctors don't fully understand why it happens, but it's known to be strongly related to anxiety.

As to why it strongly points away from MS, I'm not a doctor so I do not fully understand. My layman's interpretation is that twitching indicates peripheral nerve dysfunction whereas MS is a disease of the central nervous system. However please don't go googling around that because I'm quite sure it's far more complicated.

[Vigilante]

I have these symptoms too although I dont worry over MS my irrational worry is over BT's for the past 3 years.

Sat here with both calves twitching/buzzing/burning and random twitches in other places and a few other random sensations, I'm also assuming in reality its BFS as BT's to my knowledge do not even cause twitching especially symetrical widespread twitching....

heard ms dont cause this type of twitching too if that helps....

[DaisyP]

Thanks Serenity, as always for your sensible answers. I need logic right now!

Mine moves around more slowly, like although the twitching moves quickly the pins and needles seems to jump from one leg to the other overnight. Although during the day ill get it in both legs, one is always worse than the other.

It's always in the evenings I get irrational fears. My last eye test was also normal so that's a good sign too isn't it and both eye pressures were perfect.

I'm a bloody student nurse, I should be more logical about this and not so irrational! I don't worry about anything else, just Ms!

[Serenity1990]

Same here.

After I was lucky enough to have an EMG which happened to pick up the hyperexcitability (which is rare as you need to have symptoms whilst the needle is in thay specific muscle group) and the third neurologist I'd seen by that point told me I definitely don't have MS but this time also told me I do have BFS, I started to recover. Not straight away, I still had the symptoms, but each time I noticed them I went into the usual panic for a second then realised "hey, I now have a firm explanation for that and it's benign". And you know what? After a week or two the symptoms subsided. I had three or four blissful months and I looked back at my HA days, they seemed a distant memory and I laughed at myself.

Then I got stressed at work one day, made the mistake of googling and it all came flooding back. I got over that pretty quick, but I've not managed to rid myself of the slight nagging doubt. But unlike before I can get on with my day and my life pretty normally now, it's only at the weekends when I have time to let my mind wander that I have difficulty, probably similarly to yourself in the evenings.

---------- Post added at 23:19 ---------- Previous post was at 22:48 ----------

Apologies for all the typos above, typing on a phone.

[RedXIII]

Do you take any medications?

I just started venlafaxine and I am having the same symptoms.

[NervousNelly]

Hi Daisy P,
I am sorry you are feeling bad. I get a lot of what you are experiencing when I am in panic mode. Something sets me off (that can be totally unrelated) and off I go twitching and clenching and getting headaches and all sorts of things. I know exactly what you mean when you say you cannot understand how the hell anxiety can possibly make someone feel so terrible. But I guess that maybe, just maybe thats exactly what we need to accept.

Easier said than done but I am willing to try. If every time you feel a symptom you can label it with anxiety and move on. I know what you are thinking "but what if im wrong", indeed... but what if you are right?

Lots of love and healing being sent your way xoxox

[DaisyP]

Hi Red, no i don't take any meds at the moment.

Hi NervousNelly, I feel awful tonight. I have the shakes but down one side of my body but I think it's anxiety as i've just needed to go to the loo too (sorry too much info but thats how i am rationalising it). I think it's more that I am trying to accept it as anxiety but then even then the symptoms are still there and it's all I can focus on, i guess what i am trying to say is that even if i ignore the symptoms they still don't go away?

Serenity - thanks for the answer. I am glad you are much better than you used to be, thats the main thing and it's good you have a positive result for something which is totally benign. I think it's because I refuse to believe that anxiety can actually do this to my body?!

Tonight i feel awful, one side of my body feels incredibly weak and shaky. My right hand is actually shaking :( I feel how i can imagine a diabetic person would feel if they went hypo? I don't have diabetes - my blood sugar is fine though.

I feel so anxious :(