Hello everyone my partners GP is going down the road of MS as she has the following symptoms, weakness in the legs from the knee down on both legs with numbness and tingling in both legs and hot soles of the feet, she also gets numbness, tingling in the hands, her bladder is playing up and has balance problems and can’t walk. She’s also sleeping a lot (is this normal) ms society website highlights fatigue, is that why she’s sleeping alot? She’s has bouts of chronic pain. I know the diagnoses pathway is quite long, but allay fears I’d just like to know.
Sadly there is no shortcut. Your partners GP isn’t able to diagnose MS. Neither can we give you any helpful information to allay your fears.
The trouble is that there are many other diagnoses that share symptoms with MS. The only way of diagnosing MS is to see a neurologist, have a neurological examination, for the neurologist to see that there is a neurological problem, and perhaps some idea what that problem is. At that point, s/he will likely refer your partner for tests, possibly including MRI, lumbar puncture, nerve conduction studies, neuro-psychological testing, evoked potentials, and/or others.
The answer could be months or longer away and may or may not be MS. There are just too many other diagnoses that could be causing your partners symptoms.
I wish you both the best of luck. I hope it’s not too long a journey.
Sue
1 Like
Excellent advice from Sue. You need to push to see a neurologist because if it’s m.s. the sooner you start any drug treatment the better. A friend recently dx’d with m.s. spent years going back and forth to her g.p. - eventually referred her to a neuro - m.s. dx’d but unfortunately it was too ‘advanced’ for any drug therapy to be effective. There are still g.p.'s who are not up to speed when it comes to knowledge about the wide array of drugs available. In the meantime - and it’s easier said than done - try not to let the possibility of m.s. dominate everything you do.
The symptoms could be a lot of things including low B12 which is becoming very common it seems. My young careworker for example didnt even know she had low B12 but was very tired and had neuropathy symptoms and i was having tingling legs so i told her to see her GP and it turned out she had really dangerously low B12.
Its very easy to match symptoms with stuff on google.
she needs to be referred to a neurologist. weirdly enough I never slept in the day with my ms yes i got tired more and the heat would wipe me out, but i had no desire to stay in bed. My fatigue was different, like come 1pm my battery was slowly loosing its charge and i would just not be able to do much it was like pushing through concrete lol.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is part of many diseases, where you have the desire to just sleep the clock round yes with some people with MS i they can have it but all the friends i know with MS don’t they are very active usually in the morning and less so later.
even hormone and thyroid can present similar.
I only ever presented left sided weakness. I get tingling more now since it has advanced over the years and because of it was checked for diabetes but i am ok thankfully. my friend also has tingly legs and she has a disc herniation in her back which she got diagnosed with after presenting to the GP and had MRI.
As sue said the GP cant diagnose MS your wife must be referred to a neurologist and should really have already had an appointment.
Not sure why your GP would pick MS to start with as again like sue said there are so many diseases sadly that share MS symptoms.
she needs to see a neuro really. I hope you can get her sorted out with one sooner rather then later. Has she had blood tests done to check everything else like the B12?
When my symptoms started showing themselves one GP at my surgery was absolutely convinced it was a trapped nerve in my neck, he treated me with Ibuprofen and a Paracetamol for a few weeks ! It wasn’t until I had to almost crawl back to the surgery and saw a different GP, and mentioned that my sister had MS were my symptoms taken more seriously. In fairness, from that exact moment of mentioning my sister and the GP looking at my symptoms, this particular GP was fantastic, she got me an appointment with the Neurologist the very next morning. She actually rang the Neurology department as I sat there, and without hesitation the Neuro agreed to see me next morning. After I saw the Neuro it wasn’t that long for the MS to be confirmed. As the others have already mentioned you really do need that appointment with a Neuro to get all the tests up and running.
As all the others have said there is, unfortunately, no way of knowing if it’s MS or not until she’s seen a neurologist and had various tests. All I would say is that she may be able to get help with the symptoms before any diagnosis. I had treatment for dropped foot before I was diagnosed because they figured that whatever was causing it didn’t matter if it could be treated. I hope you get answers soon.
Best wishes
Becky x