Hi,
I’ve been recently diagnosed with RRMS (in August) after having a MRI scan when I experienced optic neuritis (double vision, vertigo, left eye went lazy). Right numb leg as well that I’ve had for about 18 months was told previously it was a trapped nerve. So everything has come as a bit of a shock!
Anyway, the last few days my left eye has been aching (around the socket) but last night it felt like the pain was going into my mouth (my top gum on the left hand side?!) felt like the pain was running from my eye socket to gums. Was pretty uncomfortable but seemed really random, I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this or if in fact the gum pain has nothing to do with MS? Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is a MS symptom or just a normal pain that everyone sometimes has
Hiya it sounds like it could be trigeminal neuralgia. A lot of people with ms get this at some point with different degrees of pain. There’s a big nerve in the head that when blood vessels expand, it can put pressure on the nerve irritating it, making it really painful in the head, face, jaw, teeth & gums. I’d make an appointment with your gp & tell him about what you’re experiencing. There are a few different drugs used to help alleviate the pain, gabapentin is one of them. It can be an intermittent thing aswell but if it is TM, you’ll definately need a nerve painkiller as normal painkillers won’t really help much.
Its a horrible thing to have though, you have my sympathies. Go see your gp & hopefully get on top of it before it gets worse. Take care x
Thanks Libertine,
Sometimes it’s hard to know which is the ms symptom or just your normal aches and pains, I thought it would probably be the ms as my left eye which is aching is the one that went lazy when I had the attack in summer (went back into alignment after a very strong dose of steroids). Luckily the aching has died down a lot since yesterday just feels like I have gunk in my left eye now but luckily I do have a ms eye appointment booked next week, it’s more of a check from the last attack and because I’m newly diagnosed so I shall be telling about this aching. Thanks for shedding some light on it as I’m still a bit of a newby to MS x
Yes and no! For sure, MS can be the indirect cause of things that can easily pass for ‘normal aches and pains’ - for instance, when one limb or muscle group isn’t pulling its weight and other bits get pulled out of alignment, causing all sorts of soft tissue strains and aches. But the primary effects of MS tend to be so damned odd that (in my experience, anyway) they rarely feel like anything else ‘normal’. That eye business you describe doesn’t sound much like normal aches and pains to me.
I hope that you have a good discussion at your eye appt.
Alison