Multiple sclerosis

[Serenity1990]

Is this story about you personally? Are you still suffering with Health Anxiety on top of BFS?
After reading up in more detail about BFS I wouldn't say it's what I have and perhaps I do not have MS either but I might.

It's not my story, no.

I don't know whether I still have HA, probably a little. Certainly not like when I was panicking and convinced myself I had MS, back then the symptoms were overwhelming and I just stopped functioning. I made the transition from a fully sponsored postgrad researcher in a science subject at one of the best universities in the world to a bum within two months. I'm now nearly back where I was, luckily.

She was misdiagnosed because she had a single migraine lesion, and also this was going back a couple of decades (so the same mistake probably wouldn't be made today). She doesn't have MS. They are different illnesses with (as with all neuro disorders) some... significant overlap in symptoms but no overlap in presentation of symptoms. Note the crucial difference here.

I'm just making the point to you the danger of hanging around MS forums where the only person who thinks you have it is you. They will only serve to reinforce your fear.

In terms of my own symptoms, I still have fasciculations and transient tingling. I have the constant pressure sensation on top of my head (though is mostly settles on the right these days), though this is always relieved by my osteopath (I must go back soon, I've been busy). This is because my neck muscles are really tight (bad posture, stress, whatever), which has caused a couple of cranial nerves to become irritated. (In my BFS, any nerve entrapment is amplified massively).

I really do understand where you're at. I've been there. I had symptoms and I researched on Google (I am an academic after all, I should be good at this) and Google told me I had MS. Everything I saw confirmed it. I saw a neurologist privately, I saw the very best, and he told me I definitely did not have MS based on symptoms alone. I then over the course of eighteen months, thanks to the NHS, saw three different neurologists at the best specialist neuro hospital in the country, and they did lots of tests, and before and after every single one of these tests they told me the same thing: I do not have MS. Luckily my EMG picked up (non-neuromytonic) peripheral nerve hyperexcitability (hence the BFS diagnosis).

Please don't make the mistakes I did. I can't tell you what you do and don't have, but I can tell you by having pretty much the same symptoms as you and more I managed to take the same route you seem to be taking to convince myself I had MS, and it nearly ruined my whole future and my life. Ironically when I consulted the real experts (four of them, no less), it was abundantly clear to all of them I did not have MS.

[Lostinthought...]

Hope so but it doesn't help when a family member has Ms so makes me think more chance my symptoms are Ms related rather than anxiety related

[Serenity1990]

I understand your anxieties. Get checked out, listen to what your doctor says, and trust him/her.

That last bit is important: they know about this stuff. You do not. No amount of googling can replace their knowledge, and I can assure you that whilst there are many steps to ruling out or diagnosing illnesses, consulting Google is not amongst those stepS.

I also have a family member with MS. Whilst there is a correlation within families, from the papers I've read outside of first degree relatives (parents and siblings) there is no statistically significant link between other relatives having it and your probability of getting it. The remaining correlation dissappears once you control for environmental characteristics.

For what it's worth, though I'm not a medic I'd stake my savings on whatever you're diagnosed with being something far more benign and boring than MS. This is because as much as your experience is new and troublesome to you (and I really do get that - I've been there), over the past two years I've read hundreds of exactly similar threads (historic and current) accross this board and the BFS ones. None of them ended in an MS diagnosis.

Not one.

[Cusper]

Look up candida overgrowth. It causes all of those symptoms! especially brain fog and anxiety. http://thewholejourney.com/could-it-be-candida.

I used to get dizzy as well. Last year I had twitching and tingling and I haven't had those in about a year now as well.

[Lostinthought...]

Because Ms is already in my family it makes me think it's more likely my symptoms are due to this rather than anxiety

[Emilym80]

Because Ms is already in my family it makes me think it's more likely my symptoms are due to this rather than anxiety

While that's a possibility, most of what you listed aren't symptoms of MS. They are all symptoms, of anxiety, though.

Take care

[Biscuitmuncher]

Those symptoms don't sound like MS. I am waiting for a brain and spine MRI to check for demyelination and the symptoms that I have are not the ones you have listed

[Lostinthought...]

Thanks all, so nice if you all to reassure me. I'm a big reassurance lover lol
When I have good days I can rationalise and tell myself it's anxiety or something less severe than Ms, although there's so much research into Ms going on it may not even be the worst thing to get. It's the fear of the unknown! On bad days I can't rationalise and tell myself if that first relative has it then looks like I do.

We must all be lacking in something in our brains to make us over think and over analyse our bodies so much, it's nuts and I know very well it's nuts but what makes it more nuts is that I can't stop it!

Serenity, any chance of you living with me for a while and giving me some daily lessons on why I don't have Ms, you sound quite knowledgeable lol