Numbness in left side of body...MS?

[tmmontgomery]

Hello all,

I have been having some miserable symptoms for over a month now, and I just don't know what to do. I wake up every day and feel miserable, most of the time worse than the day before. I have been to a neurologist who took basically an entire MRI body scan (minus my legs) to check for MS or anything else that might be causing my symptoms. Got the results back Wednesday and everything came back normal. Did a CT scan a few weeks back at the ER (went because I was feeling so awful) and came back completely normal.

Symptoms are as follows:

-Generalized weakness (feeling like I have no energy at all)
-Weakness on left side of body. Does not interfere with walking or movement, but my internal medicine doctor said my grip was slightly less on my left side than right, and my left eye, when looking all the way to the left, seems very slightly shaky.
-Heaviness in left side of body, mostly in leg. Again, this does not have an affect on my walking or balance.
-Vibrating sensation in body. Mostly in foot. Sometimes in abdomen and chest. Comes and goes it seems, or maybe I'm just not noticing it at certain times.
-Sometimes tingling in my left foot. It seems to only to do it when I'm sitting criss cross apple sauce... it might just be my foot going to sleep, I am not sure.
-Feeling that I'm in a dream. Things don't seem as real or solid as they used to. When I do a task, I have to reassure myself that I'm actually doing it. When I wake up, I have to make sure I tell myself who I am (even though I already know and never forget.) I feel sometimes like my body is foreign, my hands move but I don't know how they're moving. or I walk and I know I'm walking, but it just feels like I am on autopilot. Almost like I am loosing my mind.
-Shakiness, especially in hands. Not pronounced, but it's noticeable.
-Feeling of fullness in left side of abdomen.
-Trouble swallowing sometimes. It comes and goes. It almost seems if I think about swallowing, that's when it seems to get harder to.
-Tired, bloodshot eyes (feel like I have been looking at a computer screen all day, even though I haven't.)
-I don't feel as sharp as I usually am. Sometimes I have to read something more than one time to really get it, and I've noticed when I talk, sometimes I trip over some words. Here lately though my speech has seemed pretty much okay.

There are more symptoms, but I don't want to confuse anybody or start listing too much, as I know sometimes that can make it hard to see what's going on. As I said, my neurologist said that I checked out fine physically when he did my exam. Said there was nothing out of the ordinary, no signs of Optic Neuritis, no trouble with balance or anything like that, so I was pretty confident it was not MS at that time. His office said my MRI looked completely normal, no lesions. I was reading elsewhere in the forum about the whole no lesion MRI thing. I haven't done any type of nerve testing, and I am thinking that that would be the next step because of the heavyness and sometimes tingling. My nuero is wanting to do a tilt table test to I guess check for dysautonomia? Because I told him sometimes I feel like I'm going to pass out (MISTAKEEEE!!) even though I know I'm not really going to pass out... it's just that feeling I get. It's almost like a rush of adrenaline. Not really sure how to describe it.

I saw a very good internal medicine MD just a few days ago who said that there were tons of things that could be causing the symptoms that I'm having. I have been through a significant amount of stress lately, so he prescribed Wellbutrin 75 MG once a day to see if that would help with the brain fog/dreamy feeling. I have been on it for three days, with no affect being seen yet. I realize these types of medicines take a little while to work.

So what could this all mean??? I wake up every day feeling worse and worse, it has caused me to basically stop my life and stay at home with my mom. I want to get back to normal so bad!!! It is very frustrating because I don't feel like my normal self. I haven't driven in three weeks. It's even hard for me to ride in a car without feeling very freaky.

I have really thought about it being MS... but from what I can understand, most of the time MS isn't really debilitating in it's first stages right?. It's more just annoying. Like I said, the thing that has got me really unable to do anything is the feeling of dreamyness. I can deal with the physical symptoms all day, but when it comes to my mind and not feeling like myself, like I'm a zombie almost, it's very scary.

thanks for any type of light anyone can shed on my problem. very desperate for answers. I love the internal medicine doc, but you can't see your doctor every day so in between I'm TRYING to find anything to help.

-taylor

[tmmontgomery]

Thank you all so much for the warm welcome. :) I think that you're right, even if it ends up and I don't have MS, I still feel like this is a good place to come and get lots of answers about nuero problems.

To answer some of your questions Deb, I have been under the care of my nuero for about three weeks. I have only seen him once. He said first he was going to rule out MS, and then go to autonomic dysfunction. The funny thing is, I haven't really had a TON of bloodwork done, I mean they took about 4 vials of blood (in which I almost passed out) and checked for all kinds of things, Lyme I know was one of them. When I go back to my internal medicine doc I have a feeling that he is going to want to take some more blood to see maybe what else he can find. I actually just found this internal medicine doc, recommended by a friend, and really glad I did.

He ordered an ECHO, but honestly I think i might have forgot about the appointment. :( I have been feeling so bad this week that I have pretty much done nothing and I think I forgot to write it down. So looks like we will be rescheduling that. Haha.

As far as the tilt table test, when they called me back with the results for the MRI the girl actually said that they wanted to do one and that the cardiologist would be calling me within the next couple of days. I am not sure that I am going to go through with it... mainly because I am so scared but also because I have been keeping a very close check on my blood pressure and the numbers haven't really been changing. My heartrate does change, especially when I stand, but my blood pressure has never gone below 125 SYS since I've been taking it. Oddly enough this week though, I have had a few of these pass out sensations, where I feel almost like I am 'not going to make it' in whatever I am doing, but I end up fine. I have checked my blood pressure during those feelings and it is either always up or normal. Never down. So I am wondering if maybe I should get a second opinion about the TTT from my internal or what. The main thing is right now I feel so weird/dreamy that I don't want to induce anything to make me feel even worse, even though I know that the TTT might actually help rule out some stuff, I am just very scared. I had one person to suggest maybe to have it done without the IV fluids (nitroglycerin or whatever they use) and just see if they can find anything that way.

I am also sleep deprived. I haven't been sleeping at all, and I know that lack of sleep can cause many weird things to your body. My internal gave me some Lunesta to try, and I have been very scared to take it for fear of weird side effects that I might have, but I broke down and took it last night just to see if it would help me, in which it kind of did. I didn't get to good sleep until about 2AM and I took it around 9PM. But I am going to try to take it over the next few days to see if it will work better as I go.

Hi Sarah!

Thank you so much! Looking forward to talking and sharing! :)

[SarahL2491]

hang in there and you have found the best place to share your problems; we may not be the experts but we love to listen and share!

[Deb61]

I am very sorry to hear that you are experiencing all of these problems!  You have found a great forum to get feedback and support.  We're not doctors (for the most part, anyway), but most of us have a great deal of experience with MS and/or the types of symptoms that you are dealing with.  

Your internal medicine doctor sounds like a keeper--I'm happy to hear that you feel confident in him/her. How long have you been seeing your neurologist?  Probably by the second meeting, you should have had many blood tests to rule out the mimics of MS:  B12 deficiency, Lymes, lupus, hypothyroidism, lupus, Sjogren's, Bechet's, etc.  

There can be other lots of causes of your symptoms.  Did you do the tilt table test?  A dysfunction in your autonomic nervous system can cause many problems.  My sister had this test prior to her diagnosis.  It was found that she did have an autonomic nervous system problem.  

Before my diagnosis, not only did I have blood tests--I believe, if I can remember correctly, that is was like 14 vials of blood taken from me, MRIs, LP, etc., the doctor even ruled out other diseases/problems with a CT of my lungs and an echocardiogram of my heart!  I don't know how these are related to the symptoms I was having, but a good neuro will look into all sorts of possibilities by listening to the patient's history and the findings (or lack of findings) in the examination.

Even if you don't have MS or your symptoms point away from it, it's a good place to hang out and learn about neurological symptoms and get support.  I hope to hear from you soon.  

Deb