My doctor has arranged an MRI because I have a lot of historical symptoms which would fit with MS. The thing which triggered the realisation was that I was suddenly getting worse with my balance. For a long time I’ve had issues of wobbly and losing my balance when I close my eyes while standing. More recently I kept waking in the night needing to pee and trying to get to the bathroom, I was very unsteady on my feet. I’ve been the same when I’m tired too. I’m not dizzy. I just seem to stumble about and bump into things.
That’s by far not the only symptom, just the most stand out one at the moment.
The thing I’m concerned about though is more the tiredness and weakness that I’m currently experiencing. After a stressful event last week, I thought I was having a breakdown. Depressed, crying and so exhausted that I could hardly move. Also incredibly anxious. Mentally I picked up with help from a friend but I was then able to realise that physically I wasn’t quite right. My legs ached. They felt so heavy that they just wanted to rest. They felt like they might give way under me, shaking when I walked down stairs.
My whole body has been tired. Then I picked up for a day and today I’m back to being shattered, with shaky and very tired legs.
I keep questioning whether this is mental health related, as some people keep suggesting. Am I just going through a stressful time and this is my body reacting. Or am I experiencing some sort of vitamin deficiency.
Deep down I don’t think it’s my mental health. I think my mental health is being affected by my body and not the other way around. I still want to do things. I have a million and one things I need to do. I’m just so tired. I feel like a terrible mother because I know my kids want to go and do something fun together. I’m trying to rest to build up my energy to have at least one day out this holiday with them but all the little things they want me to do in a day drains all the energy I have.
I don’t know whether this is MS yet but I just wanted to see whether anyone else experienced this. Does it fit with MS or could I just be exhausted by life?
Hi, ms can be difficult to diagnose…took 22 yers for me.I lost all control below waists…ie mobility, bladder, bowel. MY spinal lesions were well hidden but did so much damage.
Fatigue is bad, spasticity and spasms were much worse than now, some years ago.
Could well be stress and worry, or covid-related or many things. But your GP is taking it seriously and has not just dismissed it as mental health related, which is a good thing, and arranged an MRI, so that may pick up if there are any neurological changes. Hopefully it will come back clear.
I have PPMS which is rare actually. 130,000 in uk have MS USUALLY RRMS ONLY ABOUT 10% will have PPMS.
It can usually start around 40.
with RRMS there are distinct relapses. These can be mild or severe and people can recovery on their own or with treatments and therapies.
PPMS YOU JUST start and never really catch a break. my first symptoms were Optical Nueritis and then ongoing stuff i thought i was going nuts. so many non specific things but mostly related from the waist DOWN. Ongoing Optical neuritis. it took from 1999 to 2016 to be diagnosed with PPMS.
SO for now you probably have a long road for answers, so all i can say is we survive. make sure you are as healthy as you can be. if you have kids if they are old enough get them to help, if you have a partner do the same ask for help. If you need to rest then do so. I got healthy and it did make a change.
you have been taken seriously so just go with the flow. BUT get the kids involved they can be very helpful even really young ones.
one of my symptoms my mate at work was convinced i was going into work drunk as when i went into the office i would lean to the right and constantly stumble into the filing cabinets lol. Also i couldnt suddenly have hot baths. I would be dropping things constantly, and stumbled around like an old women lol.
good luck. ask doctor to check your B12 and vitimin D levels too.
not being funny but in this ongoing pandemic who doesnt have mental health issues.
I’m not sure that drawing a distinction between ‘body’ and ‘mind’ is terribly helpful here, but unfortunately it is the way that conventional medicine is currently set up, isn’t it?
Could it fit with MS? A lot of what you describe chimes with my own 20+ years’ experience, certainly, but what in my own case has been caused directly or indirectly by MS what is caused by mental/emotional issues I haven’t a clue. It’s all to closely interwoven for those distinctions to make much sense to me.
I have no idea what is the matter in your case, but I do think that you need to get some expert medical advice.
Thank you for all the replies. I know there’s no way I’m going to know for sure just yet. Alison100 is right about the distinction between body and mind not being overly helpful.
My gut feeling is that it’s not mental health related but then I talk myself into thinking I’m imagining it. I’ve had depression and anxiety before. My own experience of depression fatigue felt different to this. This was so much more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced before. It felt physical.
I think the doctors is thinking RRMS. I could have had relapses for years and not known what they were. I’ve experienced painful throat spasms, which would pass but leave my feeling drained out for days. Months would pass between them. Doctors did tests and were puzzled but put it down to reflux causing the spasms. They seemed to ignore that they were followed by my whole body feeling fatigued afterwards. All I wanted to do was sleep.
I’ve had numbness and tingling in arms and legs at various points, which then resolved itself, so was ignored. Bladder issues, with not emptying properly and now not feeling like I have to go, before having to go very urgently.
The only thing which has got gradually worse over time is the balance, fatigue and a feeling of general weakness in one leg which I’d always put down to tiredness or being unfit. When I say over time, I’m talking about 10 years, so it’s been very gradual. I’m 37 but my body feels much older, which is frustrating.