Hi there, I have been having some on and off, and constant issues the past couple years. I have been trying to talk myself out of anything being wrong the past while but recently my mother (she is a nurse) has been trying to convince me to see a Dr about this. She says that I may have early MS symptoms, but because I have a very very high pain threshold I may be understating what I am going through.
I am 24 years old, former competitive athlete but for the past 7 years just living a regular life.
Here is my list:
1) Ankle/knee/wrist weakness > this has been getting worse the past few years. I sprain my ankles a couple times a year, the most recent was frightening as I was jumping in the air, felt my ankle involuntarily go to the side and I couldn't straighten it before I hit the ground. I tore some ligaments away from the bone and was told by my physio that if hadn't had strong ankles (I was doing preventative exercises for ankle sprains) I would have broken my foot so badly that it would have been dangling from my leg and requiring pins and rods to fix.
Sometimes my knees collapse inwards even though they are healthy by the Drs standards.
2) Un Coordination- loss of finger control: I have been fighting this one for a few years. Gradually I have been much less coordinated to the point of being clumsy. I had never been like this before. Dropping things, or feeling like I am going to drop something. I fight the urge all the time to control my muscles- it is subtle but I notice it because it doesn't feel right. I feel often like my body has a mind of its own, I often can't feel my fingers when I type even though they are flying over the keyboard and my typing is getting worse. I keep missing keys or hit the wrong key, pretty much every other word now even though I am looking straight at the keyboard and I type all the time.
3) Seeing shadows in my eyes- When I look at something, especially a light, even colored surface I see patches of gray shadows in my eyes. They are everywhere, not dark enough to blind me but noticeable enough for it to look like I am looking at a marble surface when in fact I am looking at an even colored white sheet of paper.
4) Constant pulling/tearing of ligaments: I have been straining my hip flexors doing simple sit ups and this never happened before this year. I keep spraining the ankles as I mentioned before, as well as spraining my thumbs. My shoulder has been strained for no apparent reason. The slightest exercise will strain something in my body.
5) Increase in headaches. The past few months I have been getting headaches that are so bad that I feel nauseated and weak. My vision gets all dark and I see bright flashes. This happened every other night for just under 4 weeks. I only recently learned these are migranes, I had never experienced them before knowingly. Guaranteed I have had them before but to me they felt just like what a regular headache would feel like to a normal person. Now however they feel worse than anything I remembered.
6) and finally I have been having spasms/jerking before falling asleep, pretty much every night and I even though I have never felt ok in warm weather (I have always felt sick, and often collapsed) lately my limbs have been feeling incredibly heavy in the warm weather and I can't do simple things easily like push a door open.
Overall lately I have been feeling much more exhausted than normal and everything has been feeling like it is harder than it should be. I brought that part up to my physio therapist, who said 'you are getting older!' but I am 24 and sometimes I feel like I am 50 years old. I haven't explained these concerns to my Dr because I have a tendency to understate things. I have been diagnosed with a very high pain threshold, I rarely feel hunger pains, muscle aches and tingling sensations. Pain has to be very bad for me to identify. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worse in the average person, it *maybe* is a 5 for me. This was both a blessing and a curse as an athlete. Now I feel like my body is hurting more and I am afraid of talking to my Dr about this, he may think I am being hypochondriac? However my mother has given me a list of early MS symptoms and although some of these may or may not fit it is possible I am missing some with my inability to feel minor/moderate pains. All I can really explain though is that lately I have been feeling very, very odd.
I apologize for this being so long, I haven't ever told anyone about this. My mom knows of a few of these things that have been going on but I haven't told her about my eyesight or decreasing coordination. I am afraid she may freak out if she knew. I wonder if we are both over-reacting though. Any advice/suggestions appreciated, please.