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my dr is still thinking MS, Does this sound like MS to you when an MRI is negative?

I’m new here, so I appreciate any advice. I had neck surgery a little over 3 mos ago. When I was recovering as an inpatient, I noticed my right leg had numb patches and my toes were tingling. It scared me. When they got me up to walk, my right leg felt extremely heavy. They gave me a rolling walker and my right leg was basically “dragging” with little to no muscle strength.
After discharge, I started having bee sting like pain and what felt like muscle spasms that tightened around my me. Steroids helped some. According to my surgeon and the testing completed, my symptoms have not been caused by my neck surgery. A brain mri was negative, EMG/NCS neg.
i have started to occasionally say the wrong words like snake instead of steak, I could not remember for the life of me how to read $3.30. I stared at it and my mind went blank. I’ve lost my train of thought in conversations. I’ve opened the pantry to look for my clothes.
I am worried that I have now lost my mind! Lol! I am going to physical therapy 2x weekly. I’m still using a walker and a cane on short distances, so it’s gotten a little better. I just wanted to see other people’s opinion on here. With a negative mri??? I couldn’t get into the neurologist for another month!
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987762 tn?1671273328
COMMUNITY LEADER
Hi and welcome,

I'm not sure why a neurological condition like MS would get on your potential causes list when your saying you don't have any suggestive-consistent MS lesion evidence and this originated whilst you were recovering as an inpatient after undergoing neck surgery, and 3 months on and your still not even close to normal functioning yet.  

Honestly the more likely cause of this to me would be that it's in some way associated with the cervical spinal surgery, that type of surgery would be the logical catalyst...  

It's good idea to see a neurologist, hopefully you'll get an independent second opinion on what's happened, and with the surgery being 3 months ago you'll likely need  additional brain and spinal MRI's, nerve conductor tests, cognitive assessment etc etc before you have a better idea of what is going on.

Hope that helps a little.......JJ  

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Thanks for your comments. I know that seems like the most logical cause. Believe me, I was very angry with him. He has sit me down in front of a computer and shown me my spine after surgery and there is no stenosis left. He said the hardware in my neck looks well aligned. The nerves were all functioning correctly during surgery as they were continuously monitored (I guess they do that somehow?). I had a nerve conduction study and it was normal. I’m still not totally convinced yet either.
But My primary care dr at one point thought I might have had MS in the past too. I had some temporary vision loss in my right eye a year ago. I also had a couple episodes of some vertigo/ataxia. One time I ended up walking into a wall and sliding down because the vertigo was so bad. The vertigo never lasted very long though. Again MRI was negative. They ended up calling it occipital neuralgia. Basically a pinched nerve in the back of my head.
The problem is I can’t have a mri of my spine, I have a medical device. It’s an Interstim for interstitial cystitis. (Nerve stimulator in the low back to help my bladder) it has been there for many years)
I’m at at loss. Very confused. . .
987762 tn?1671273328
COMMUNITY LEADER

Dizziness and vertigo can be caused by neck (cervical spine) dysfunction, which is known as cerviocogenic dizziness or Cervical vertigo, occipital neuralgia is a variant of cervical vertigo. I'm aware that occipital neuralgia is also associated with some type of vision impairments, ocular pain, and nausea so it's likely what you experienced prior to the cervical surgery is interconnected to your neck situation but i can't provide you anything more specific, sorry!

I think what you are saying is that even though this originated whilst you were recovering as an inpatient after undergoing neck surgery, your surgeon hasn't been able to find anything physically, neurologically or diagnostically abnormal to account for what you have experienced so he can't work out what the problem is...

A full spinal MRI would of been ideal to work out the health of your spine but to give you a better idea about diagnosing MS.....MS spinal cord lesions will typically still show the resulting neurological abnormality during neurological clinical exams even without a spinal MRI to corroborate the cord lesions exist and additionally, you've had at least a couple of brain MRI's over the last year or so and it's not been abnormal.

MS literally means 'many scars' so when there isn't any brain 'and or' spinal cord lesions, the likelihood of MS becomes very unlikely compared to the other medical conditions that could also account for the same or similar symptoms the patient is-has experienced......in your situation your existing spinal situation would automatically be a more likely explanation than a neurological condition like MS, because you don't have any MS suggestive-consistent lesion evidence on your brain MRI and you have a diagnostic history that 'could' account for the symptoms you've experienced prior to and after the cervical surgery.

I'm out of time, it's Christmas eve over here in OZ and i've still got a million things to do but i do hope i have helped a little bit.........JJ


  
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I will await the neurologist appointment to see what they say. I don’t wish to have either problem. I also don’t wish to have a physician tell me it’s all in my head. So if the surgeon says it’s not my spine and the neurologist finds nothing, then I guess it’s all in my head. Which most people would think would be good news, but to me that would mean that I’m crazy. I don’t want to feel that way right now. ive gone through too much in my life. I’m sorry, I’m extremely depressed right now, I appreciate ur point of view and the time u took in ur response at this busy time of year.  I hope u have a merry Christmas!
You'd probably be surprised how many people get told by a dr it's psychological and it turns out to be something completely different, it happens a lot in all areas of medicine. My daughter  was obviously ill and getting worse, for months she really struggled with fatigue, dizziness, weakness, blurred vision, imbalance and breathing difficulties.

She was at her dr's at least twice a week in the end desperate for help but because the tests the dr ran were all normal, her dr started telling her it was anxiety and depression. Since she does deal with anxiety she did start to wonder if it could really be all in her head, but after a really bad day at work she went back to her dr's clinic and begged to see someone else.

New set of eyes and the other dr at the same clinic ran completely different tests, checked her breathing and she was trying to function on 30% lung capacity, it turned out she had an easily treated very common contagious childhood disease, she was an adult.....my point is that sometimes it is mental health related and sometimes it just isn't and it can take some time and lots of different types of tests to work out what is truly going on, so hang in there and breath!!

I am a firm believer in being proactive about mental health, if your dealing with depression please seek help for your mental health, it is only to your benefit to seek out extra support and guidance, so please seriously consider seeing a psychologist or therapist to help you through this difficult time!

Please take care of your self........JJ
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