Strange symptoms

[AMC5]

Just over a year ago I experienced strange symptoms. I am 30 yr old, good health, don't smoke, don't drink.  One morning I started having trouble speaking.  Saying wrong words, couldn't read, could barely dial the phone, forgot phone numbers, wrote down wrong numbers when being told what numbers to dial.  About a half hour before this had visual problems.  It was like everything was jiggling.  Wasn't "dizzy", just everything around me was almost  like bouncing.  Whole visual episode lasted about 20 minutes, trouble thinking, speaking, lasted about 10 minutes.  Couldn't even get the names of my children right.  Was very concerend.  Went to ER, did CT-normal.  Weeks later had MRI  w/o contrast, US of heart, neck, thyroid.  All normal.  Blood work all normal except elevated Thyroid which later when re-checked was normal.  Neurologist thought possible TIA, then changed to possible Atypical Migraine.  No history of Migraines.  Had dull headache when all over.  Since then have had a few visual problems, and some dizzy spells.  Nothing like what happened that day.  Any ideas?  Does this sound more like a type of Migraine?  Thanks for your time.

[Mr Ali]

my brother who's 31 is presently lying in hospital and has been there for the last 6 weeks, his symptoms sound similar to methonal poisoning which you mentioned. he started off with severe body ache, unsteady gait, malaise, lack of sleep and also dry/hard/cracked fingertips. he's also had epilepsy since the age of 8 and a brain tumor which was removed 6 months ago, i've been told his epilepsy & tumor are unrelated???? but since the op his fits have stopped. back to his present condition; since he was admitted the doctors cant seem to find whats wrong. a week after his admission he came home but he got worse and went back at which point he was hallcinating, stiffness including the neck, severe abdominal pains and extreme pain when urinating what little he could although his fluid intake was high, shaking (parkinsons like), jerking, loss of memory, swinging temperature, loss of speech, unaware of his surroundings etc, at present he is in a coma like state with some breathing problems. after several weeks of eliminating the doctors think he may have tb meningitis (he is asian)and is being treated for it although they cant be sure cus they r unable to do a lumber punchure as he also has regrowth in his residual tumor and it could be fatal. (neuro-surgeons do not feel his condition is a result of the regrowth) As the doctors r only guessing, please feel free to do the same.. any info will be appreciated... thank you all. please ask for anymore info.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Given the history of epilepsy and tumor (you didn't indicate what type), any number of possible causes come to mind, but your brother's situation sounds very complex and difficult to understand.  FYI, there is good reason to believe epilepsy can be at least aggravated by the neurotoxins in aspartame, and methanol poisoning can indeed cause some of the symptoms your brother has.  But you didn't answer the obvious question that comes to my mind.  Has your brother been a user of aspartame and if so, what amount of consumption of the stuff are we talking about?  WIthout knowing whether he even consumed it, it would be speculative to think about methanol poisoning.
     My heart goes out to you and your brother.  I hope his physicians are able to identify the cause of his problems.

[Mr Ali]

hi just a quick message to say thanks for your response and no, he's not a user of aspartame and his tumor is not the cancerous type. at one point they suspected that he may be having a continious seizure but a wave scan proved not. i've only posted on here as the doctors are running out of ideas and to see if anyone has alternitave sugestions??? i understand his symptoms are unusual and its difficult to say but i was just hoping someone reading this may have seen or read about similar symptoms. even your wildest sugestions cant do any harm as i will only relay it to the doctors to see if its a possiblity etc.... thanks again.

[lmroswell]

Thanks for the response.  My neurologist didn't have an explanation for the disappearance of the linear focus.  I did have an MRI of the brain done, twice.  Both showed a nodule, non-specific in the left thalamus.  How common is that?  Two neurologists were not concerned about it.  Said it did not look characteristic of a lesion.  That it is possible that I was born with it.  I wasn't aware that there are people that experience one episode of demyelination.  But, you are right.  If this is a disease process, time will tell.

[misaki]

When serial MRI studies are performed every two weeks on MS patients, demyelination focus come and go. Most of them remain silent, but since they are anatomo-pathologically (huh, spelling?) equivalent to those who cause symptoms, it's very likely that lesions with a clinical correlate can appear in MRI and later disappear as well.

Only time can tell wether the episode you describe was a first MS relapse or just an isolated process (i'm sure your doctor has told you that). If you'd said you had an optic neuritis, and the periventricular lesions (i assume you've been done a brain MRI), and so on I wouldn't lie to you. But fortunately this is not your case. There are lots of people (more than we think) out there who suffer one single demyelination episode in their life. What causes this isolated attacks (as well as MS) remains unknown, it could be a virus, but the truth is we don't know for sure (although autoimmunity plays an important role).

(Sorry, I know my English is horrible!)

[Peace2U]

Well,hello...this is my first post to this group. I just had to say that I could never handle all the back and forth bicker in the level of pain I'm in...and I really can't imagine how anyone hurting could participate in such banter.  I had to skip past most of the posts in order to find one that wasn't SCATHING.  If we all know everything, then why come here to ask questions and gather information??? I guess if this is just a place where people are so insecure with who they are and what they know that they have to put down others in order to build themselves up then I'll go elsewhere.  I had a bad enough headache before I joined this group,thank you.  Besides I don't think I need to be subject to being degraded by someone who hasn't even finished med school yet. Sounds to me like "we" are a case study, only she can't bear to sit quietly in the sidelines and study.  I think I'll find out who moderates this group. I'm quite sure I read in the guidelines that this type of behavior is not permitted.