Hello, I am having a relapse and have a lesion in my neck which had caused numbness down my right side. I have had a three week course of steroids and have improved. However, I get a lot of pain - like a sharp ache- in my neck and further down my spine. I am presuming it’s the lesion causing pain but just wondering if anyone else has had anything similar? Stardust x
Hi Stardust,
The answer is both yes and no. Lesions themselves are not painful - i.e. you cannot feel the lesion hurting!
Lesions can cause pain indirectly, by screwing up communications between the brain and rest of the body. Think of it like an electrical fault. This means the brain may get unexpected or unexplained signals from parts of the body, which it interprets as meaning: “I hurt”.
In a way, this is a safety mechanism. Pain is the body’s alarm system, so if the brain receives a garbled signal it can’t understand, the best bet is to label it “Pain”. It’s just rather unfortunate that this means we get notified of “pain”, when the cause is a miscommunication. 
Tina
Thanks for your response Tina - yeah it is a bit rubbish that I am getting the pain but I understand what you’re saying. Useful - thanks so much x