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Can lhermittes sign be the only sign of MS

I am a 39 yr old african american female with no major health issues other than obesity and health anxiety both of which are now just recently being treated. About 2 months ago i went through an extremely stressful period with my teenaged daughter. My stress and anxiety were absolutely through the roof. One day when i was getting off the bus from work i felt a vibration in my stomach just under the ribs and this only happened when i walked and only when getting off the bus. After that both arms got numb, tingly and heavy and my heart rate shot up. I asked someone to call 911 for because i thought i was having a stroke. The paramedics said it was an anxiety attack. Said i didnt need to go to the ER but i could if i wanted to. Of course i did.

All tests came back normal and i was sent home with meds. A beta blocker and anxiety meds. The next day  is when i started experiencing the lhermittes sign and its been going strong since. I recently saw a doc because i hadnt in years and i told her about it. She believes it could be a trapped nerve and suggested some exercises. I am not convinced at all. I see her again in 2 weeks and i am going to ask for an MRI. This has been worrying me for 2 months straight. Could i have MS and this be the only symptom? I was a long time alcoholic so i know b12 could be an issue but ive been taking b12 tablets and its not letting up. The b12 helped with some burning and tingling i had but not lhermittes. I know no one here is a doc just wondering what you guys think.
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987762 tn?1671273328
COMMUNITY LEADER
Hi and welcome,

Honestly unlikely to be MS when there are far too many more common explanations for the symptoms you experienced initially and then the bilateral limb tingling, some of which you've mentioned eg Anxiety, hyper breathing causes the brain to limit the amount of oxygen going to the limbs and causes bilateral tingling. Alocholism, causes damage to the peripheral nervous system and related peripheral nerve damage. Weight issues are also related to peripheral nervous system issues as well as structural damage to joints, degenerative discs etc. vitamin deficientcies like B12, Iron etc can cause some/similar MS symptoms.

Health anxiety is actually a very difficult type of mental health issue to deal with, because you get stuck in a cycle of escalating symptoms to more you focus on what your body is telling you. Think of it as being like your stress makes your body go into over drive and the health anxiety makes your head space hyper focus on what your physically feeling and the more you focus on what your feeling the more your head space hyper focuses and your thoughts spin until your headspace has jumped over everything else untill your focusing on the worst case explanation. If you look up a symptom your health anxiety can get you thinking what you experience is the exact same thing as what you've been reading about or you start to experience similar symptoms after reading about the symptom associated with a specific medical condition.

One of the hardest things to do when you're dealing with health anxiety is to understand that  researching symptoms or a specific medical condition, talking about the medical condition you fear it is, hyper focusing on your sympoms or the medical condition your concerned you have etc etc is all feeding the health anxiety and the more you feed HA the more symptoms you end up experiencing and the more your anxiety is in control.

lhermittes is associated with MS but its more commonly associated with structural spinal issues and peripheral nerve issues because whilst spinal cord lesions are what causes the lhermittes if a neurological condition like MS is the causation but structual damage to the cervical spine from say degenerative disc disease in the cervical spine, or over curature of the cervical spine whilst chin to chest looking down, pinched nerve etc so its very possible what your experiencing is cause by a more common spinal/physical issue and your health anxiety is causing you additional worry on top of it...

I would honestly focus on your anxiety first, getting that back under your control can only help you deal with the physical issues better, doing what your dr recommends will also help but you could consider getting the opinion of a physio therapist too.

Hope that helps a little.........JJ      
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