I'm so scared I might have MS... is it just anxiety ?

Symptoms and treatments
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1

Hey everyone, i’m gonna try to make this post a short one. (My english might be bad i’m sorry, i’m french canadian)

About 2 months ago, I had numbness in the tip of my fingers, it was a very mild numbness, but just enough so I could notice it. It lasted for about 1-2 days, then everything went back to normal.

About 1 1/2 week ago, I started having weird feelings/pain in both of my arms. Sometimes it was the left one, sometimes it was the right one. The feeling is very hard to explain, kinda like when you hit your elbow, but 1000x less painful than that. It was just really annoying. I wasn’t concerned at first, because I thought it would go away on its own…

But after 2-3 days of not going away, of course I had to look at my symptoms on google, one of the first thing that came up was MS. I started googling about MS like crazy, which gave me anxiety. The pain started to turn into a weird bubbling feeling (like a soda that is bubbling) mixted with muscle discomfort, once again, very mild, then my left leg started to have some mild tingling, then the same weird feeling as my arms. When it’s not my leg that’s acting weird, it’s my left arm, when it’s not my left arm, it’s my right one… I became obsessed about MS, i’m still googling about symptoms and the illness, my life lately has been only about MS and anxiety.

I know that the human brain is so strong, that it can somatize symptoms out of anxiety. I don’t know if all of this is from anxiety, because it is so subtle, I think i’ve had 2 or 3 times that I could really feel some REAL tingling, but most of the time, it’s very light/mild numbness/tingling and the feeling that my leg/arm is weak, but I can still walk normally, and lift things up as I always do. I don’t feel like i’m loosing muscle strength at all, it’s just a weak/heavy annoying sensation (almost like a tickly sensation). Also, since a couple of years, i’ve had weird nose itchiness (the skin outside of my nose, not inside), no matter how much I would scratch it, it wasn’t relieving. It would last 30 mins to an hour, then it would stop. This can happen 2-3 times a year, I just learned that it could be an MS symptom.

I went to my GP, he sent a request for a neurologist, but he said that it could take months before I get to see one because my symptoms are not severe.

Could this be MS ? Does MS start with such light/mild symptoms like that ? I don’t have any other symptoms. I am miserable right now :frowning: I don’t know if it’s the anxiety and the fact that i’m just always focusing on the feeling of my body, or if the feeling is real. I don’t know if I symptoms because I think about it, or if I think about it because I have symptoms…

What do you guys think ? I even had an appointment with a psychic medium because I just couldn’t anymore. :joy: She told me she doesn’t see anything happening to me for a long time, but I take that with a grain of salt for obvious reasons.

Thank you all in advance for your answers! :heart:

2

Hello,
I think being anxious is not going to lessen your symptoms.
Just wait and see if you have a diagnosis of MS confirmed.
I remember my first dx letter stated “probable multiple sclerosis”.
It was not until a second dx letter, ten years later, that I accepted the illness and decided to try DMD treatment for the MS.
It’s best to think positive always.
Regards,
JP

3

You poor thing!

Firstly your English is better than many English people’s :joy: so no need for apologies there!

Your symptoms are so broad that they could be down to any number of things and I think on balance it is less likely to be MS than something else. Most people who worry they might have MS do not turn out to have it.

It’s great you’ve got a neurologist appointment coming up, but in the meantime it might be worth…

Asking your GP to run some bloods. In particular test your B12 level as this can cause neurological symptoms if it’s low.

Start keeping a symptom diary ready for your appointment. Note anything significant that happens with the symptoms such as stress or another illness like a cold in case it’s linked.

Start taking vitamin d. It can’t hurt and might help.

Be strict with your googling. Set yourself a time limit and be selective about which questions you search and which sites you read. Literally any symptom could be caused by MS so it will always say that’s what it could be if that’s what you type in! I sometimes ask my husband to google something for me then tell me what it said, so if you have someone who could do that it might be a helpful buffer!

Finally, find out which consultant you have been referred to. They will usually work privately as well. If the next few months of your life will be taken over with the anxiety of this it may well be worth finding the money for a private initial consultation (normally around £150-200). I was diagnosed privately and then transferred to the same neurologist’s NHS list. I did have a lot of tests done privately though, which I was lucky to be insured for so bear in mind it might not actually speed up getting an MRI on the NHS for example, but just talking it though may help you.

Good luck. Hope you’re ok, stay strong.
Charlotte x

4

Hello, Ive just been diagnosed by a neurologist which was actually a relief as I knew pretty much 100% I had it even though I was told l probably didn’t, Ive had similar symptoms to you for twenty five years and it has only started getting significantly worse these past five years I now have had the weird sensation you get in your spine a few times, optic neuritis and mild muscle spasms and fatigue , the fatigue is the worse, the tingling has actually improved but comes back when Im tired ill or stressed, so even if you have MS you can live an almost normal life for a very long time, but it would have helped me enormously to get a diagnosis earlier, I would have felt less guilty about my lack of energy and less of a failure for not meeting my expectations, hope you find your answers sooner and that it helps.