Hi there! I’m a 23 year old guy with a history of health anxiety and obsession over perceived symptoms. So about a year ago I started getting pins and needles in my left foot. It very soon started happening in my right foot as well. Since then it’s happened roughly once a day, almost always while sitting, for 1-5 minutes at a time. It’s usually either a burning feeling in one of the balls of my feet, or a prickly feeling in one of my heels. I also have a deadened numb spot on one of my middle toes and I think some mild deadened numbness on my left heel. It also may be good to know that My mother has had MS for years.

I’ve noticed it almost exclusively happens while sitting, very often while in my car. I was freaked out about MS from the start, but that anxiety got compounded recently when I started noticing periodic leg cramps, as well as a very subtle fuzzy feeling in between my shoulder blades, usually while hunched forward I think. I also every once in a while feel light headed and see text in doubles, though the light headed thing could be me over thinking and the seeing double thing happens maybe once every few months if that and only for like 5 seconds.

The leg cramps are usually while sitting down for a long time, and they feel like a kind of pressure point in the back of my calf or bottom of my thigh. These have really compounded my anxiety about MS as I now have at least two potential symptoms.

I know that some of the conditions under which my symptoms operate should soothe me (tingling happens while sitting down, for max 5 mins, etc.), but to be honest I’m freaking the hell out. I don’t want to lose a huge aspect of the one and only life I’ll have to this horrible disease. My mother has a great attitude about it, and I could learn a lot from that. But I want to be able to travel, see the world, bungee jump, skydive, all sorts of other able-bodied things. I don’t want that potential taken away from me. I know it’s still only around a 5% chance, but MS is more likely if you have a close family member with it. I’m the sort of hypochondriac that wants to know, like right this instant, what is wrong with me and take immediate steps to mitigate it. So i don’t really know how to cope in my daily life when my health anxiety takes over because it consumes my thoughts.

Should I be concerned? And if so, how can i cope with the worry while still participating in my everyday life?