I googled MS and now I am so scared

[j2]

For several months I have been having random, moderate to severe pains in my hands and feet. The pains come and go, sometimes in minutes other times they last for hours. They feel like either burning in my feet, freezing hand(s) or sharp pains near the surface of the skin on fingers and toes. My back is stiff but not painful and I feel worse in the morning. It also seems that I am having troubles with slurring my speech a bit and now I think my legs are feeling weak. To make matters worse I googled my symptoms and every one of them came back as a symptom of MS. I know I should not do this but now I am over the moon with panic and I can’t think straight. Any rational reassurance would be great. I have been diagnosed with GAD and IBS for many years and I am wondering if I am just wearing out my nervous system. Please talk some sense into me!!!!!!

[anx mum]

can relate 2 how u feel like urself ive had ms symptoms been worried sick had an mri and it came bk normal but was so scared can understand how u feel

[harasgenster]

All also symptoms of anxiety. I have a friend with MS and this sounds a lot more like anxiety than MS to me. From my friend's experience I can tell you that you'd really, really know if you had MS!

I've had all of these symptoms from anxiety. I used to get shooting pains down my fingers that could become so painful I'd shout out sometimes. It's just your nerves, don't worry.

[j2]

The only thing besides this site that is keeping me remotely sane is that a dr once told me that MS symptoms are constant not coming and going in a matter of minutes or even days. Does anyone know this to be true? My symptoms have been around for months but come and go several times a day sometimes. Sorry for the rambling and the obvious panic in my tone but I am really having a hard time right now.

P.S.
You guys have no idea (or maybe you do) how glad I am for this forum and people that respond so quickly. Thank you.

[KK77]

Harasgenster is right: if you really had MS it would be far more severe and you'd really know there was something wrong. It could be any number of symptoms but they'd all be very serious - like complete loss of bladder function or loss of the use of your arm etc.

It's just anxiety j2 - you'll be fine.

[eva82]

Google is what started all my issues with HA! For me it was a fear of having a brain tumor or some other serious disease when I began experiencing phantom smells (I swear I smelled smoke when no one else could smell it). I googled that symptom and BANG! TUMOR!!! Well, that triggered headaches and other weird head sensations...went and got a CT scan and loads of other tests done...all came back normal. With Google, we tend to only focus on the worse case senario, when there can be so many other reasons why we are having certain symptoms. I never realized how many of our symptoms are also common symptoms of anxiety!