I was taken to hospital by ambulance yesterday because I was having spasm after spasm after spasm, in quick succession with barely a let up in between. They were very strong and bouncing me right up off the bed. That was scary, very scary indeed! They settled to a manageable level but for a while I was ‘the jerky person’ people were staring at and asking what’s wrong. The good part of it is that I was seen by the neurologist and given a thorough assessment.
He took my history and asked about all symptoms and strange events I’ve had over many years before going onto the neurological tests. He looked at the strength of my legs and arms; he watched me walk; he looked in my eyes; he performed co-ordination tests and tested my reflexes.
The most interesting discoveries: Whilst lying flat I cannot lift my legs off the bed without super super effort. I cannot resist someone pushing against my limbs. I cannot stand up out of a chair without the use of my arms. I cannot hop. When reading small print with my left eye I tilt and move the page. I cannot touch the tip of my nose with either finger while my eyes are closed - I touch my forehead instead. I cannot move my finger back and forth from my nose to his finger when he moves his finger to different positions - I’m all over the place, mostly only trying to touch his finger forgetting about my nose or poking the air where his finger was last time I touched it.
However, despite all this my reflexes were normal. That, alongside a normal brain MRI, means the neurologist is hoping that I actually have ‘Functional Neurological Disorder’. His friend in Edinburgh is currently researching this and his website is www.neurosymptoms.org. I’ve read it and it doesn’t quite ring true for me.
The next stage is to have a MRI scan of my spinal cord and an Evoked Potential test. These will, I guess, show whether it is actually MS that I have or FND. Either way, my body aint behaving!