Could you please clarify MRI results please..........

[pinky77]

I recently had an MRI done and the brain was reported to look fine but i had widening of the central canal at the lowest levels of the thoracic spine. I had the MRI done as I was having some weird symptoms such as shaky legs, headaches, numb tongue, burning sensation down my left ribs and thorugh the left side of my face, neck and arms and slurred speech and I am assuming that this isn't the cause of most of those!
I have been to GP but just been told its nothing which doesn't settle my mind, can you explain what this means?  
Thank you in advance for your help...

[pinky77]

Thank you for your help I really appreciate it.

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello again.

Your doctor thought it to be migraine probably because all these symptoms do, in fact, appear with migraine. But in you case, you did not have headaches suggestive of migraine. Hence, it still remains a mystery how you were given a diagnosis of migraine.

I am more concerned about the weakness and numbness part. You will have to rule out peripheral neuropathy. Diabetes has to be rule out.

Regards

[pinky77]

Thank you for your reply, I have had my symptoms for a while, the first ones were about 3 years ago where I had shaking down my left arm and right leg simultaineously.  I have had the various symptoms since as described before.  I am being seen by a neurologist who said that my symptoms were migrainous in nature(!) and the MRI was head neck and spine so the whole back was done, the letter said that "there was some motion artefacts affecting technical quality of the scans but, however, significant pathalogical changes are not seen.  Her MRI of the brain was normal"  
When the neurologist did a physical exam she said I had a marked weakness in my left leg and lack of feeling across the top of the right foot!
I just didn't understand how it was a migrain and what the MRI results meant.

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

Your symptoms are varied. It would be interesting to know since how long have you been suffering from this ?

A widened spinal canal is usually seen if there is some obstruction to the flow to CSF due to any tumor or external compression of the cord. But I guess the whole back MRI was done and it was normal.

I would recommend that you should consult a neurologist and get yourself thoroughly checked. Clinical examination is essential.

Regards