Hi all. i had been hanging out on the MS boards because like so many over there my brain mri shows some lesions and I had not yet been diagnosed with anything that could explain all my symptoms until yesterday. So here is a not so brief history. the only thing not explained now is the brain lesions but two neuros have said they could just be age (I'm 51)
After over a year of testing I have gone from a rheumatologist who said FM to a primary care doc who blamed things on my thyroid to another rheumatologist who said it was sero-negative inflammatory arthritis. During that time my symptoms of neck pain, cracking feelings in my neck when I turned my head, hand numbness on the right and occasional falling (right leg giving way) led to neck x-rays, then mri's which showed spinal strenosis and two herniated cervical discs. I had the cervical discectomy and fusion done on May 1. everything seemed to be going well, then on July 1 I fell and from there things went downhill. Severe radiculapthy on the right, urinary incontinence, right leg weakness, balance problems. mri of brain showed frontal lesions so off to a neuro I go. More testing and mri's and neuro is blaming everything on carpal tunnel and lumbar facet disease. have a severe episode of being unable to move my right leg, hospitalized for three days and sent home on PT with a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease. Lumbar nerve blocks done, no effect, right hand CT release done, little improvment.
Yesterday I had a consultation with a neuro at JHHS. I had sent him all the reports earlier and brought my mri's with me. He has diagnosed me with cervical myelopathy. Since I also have the spondylosis I looked up CSM and the symptoms and progression fit exactly.
S0, here i am, hoping to learn more and find out how others are coping with this.
moeck