Dear all,
It seems that while the internet is a wonderful thing, many people with unexplained potential neurological symptoms turn to Dr Google as a source of medical information and answers to their questions.
Dr Google is a rubbish doctor. He cannot either diagnose you with MS or indeed calm your fears that you may have MS or any other neurological disorder or disease.
If you have odd, seemingly neurological symptoms that are worrying you, in the first place see your GP. Explain what is worrying you, take notes with you of symptoms along with approximate dates and how long various things stayed with you.
If your GP thinks it’s neurological, they should refer you to a neurologist. An appointment may come through in just weeks or in some places, may take months. If you have very bad symptoms, lose your mobility, have severe eye problems, fits or suspect you may have had a stroke, go to A&E.
A neurology appointment is likely to include the neurologist taking a verbal history from you (this is where a list of symptoms and dates will again be useful), may do (should do) a neurological examination, and might refer you for tests, including an MRI, a Lumbar Puncture and / or Evoked potentials tests.
Only after a neurologist has conducted tests could they diagnose MS or rule it out. It’s also possible that they can’t do either. They could diagnose a Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS), where you have had one attack which resembles MS, but only one is usually not sufficient to make a diagnosis of MS (it’s not ‘multiple’). They could diagnose something else entirely, or refer you to a different specialist.
If you need to look up a particular symptom or type of test, try looking on the MS Trust website: https://www.mstrust.org.uk/ or this site.
You can of course, ask for the help of people on this forum. There are many people who will try to help people going through the fear and worry associated with experiencing MS type symptoms or who are in the process of being diagnoses, or have just been diagnosed with MS.
We will try to help where we can, just remember that there are many symptoms associated with MS. Lots of these are also shared with other disorders. No one on this site can read a list of your symptoms and say ‘yes, that sounds like MS’ or conversely, ‘that doesn’t sound like MS’. All we can do is pay attention, read what you’ve been experiencing and offer some advice as to where to go next.
Sue