Hello.
I am a 62 year old male awaiting a neurology appointment in Devon. My condition started about 10 months ago. It all started with what I call twitches. gentle little tingling at different spots at a time all over my body. Then I had the occasional stronger one that caused my leg or body or move. (never been touched by cattle prod but I have it in my mind it would feel a little like this), then the single stronger ones started to come in clusters no more than 4 but often fast in sequence across my body. Then I had pain numbness in ankle and wrists, this moved to elbow and now struggle to carve the Sunday roast or work with a saw doing DIY. In recent weeks I had a moment when I was unstable, it was like being on a boat and rocking, very strange. That same afternoon I was passenger in car and had a cluster of painful hits one in right eye and 3 in my elbow which gave me some discomforted. I do have days where the condition is slight and other days when it is full on. I have never experienced anything like the last 10 months. I tried going private but the person my Doctor recommended has a massive waiting list and that is just to get on the waiting list. All other attempts for private referral have taken me back to the same person the Doctor has recommend. My family are concerned it is MS, i asked the Doctor and she said that due to my age they see things which can be age associated. MRI and loads of blood and urine samples done. Why am I doing this note, I am going mad with worry. I don’t want to discuss with wife till we have a diagnosis as she worries a lot and it may all turn out to be simple stress related thing. I don’t see any pattern. Not taking any medication yet as I want to see what is happening and be able to report changes etc on appointment. hopefully that will be soon.
Hi Smudge, I’m assuming your B12 and Vitamin D levels were OK. If you take multi-vitamins containing B6, it might be worth checking your levels of that, as excess B6 can cause similar neurological symptoms - someone posted on here about that a short while back.
In the meantime, whilst you are waiting on the Neurology appointment; keep a symptom diary of what, when and for how long - ie. pain in right eye, date - passenger in car, lasted xx minutes; this will give you a better idea of any potential triggers and will be very useful to have when you see the Neurologist (pick the top 3 - 5 symptoms that bother you for the appointment); also if you haven’t already, give mindful meditation a go, it can help with stress and to an extent the discomfort of various symptoms.
Hi there. I think we have all experienced that horrible time of waiting for a diagnosis and all sympathise with you.
As @TheresaB says try mindfulness, meditation. Also, folk with MS are advised to get plenty of exercise and to eat well I.e a healthy diet. So just in case you have MS and undoubtedly a good thing to do anyway follow the general guidelines suggested by e.g the MS Society. I try to follow the ideas put forward on the ‘Overcoming MS’ website - basically how to live well with MS