Is this a relapse or have I just worn myself out??

Hi all,

I was diagnosed a few weeks ago. A brief background is that last year I had sensory symptoms, I had 3 separate ‘episodes’ of numbness in my legs (alternating each time), I only had 1 noticable lesion, which is on my spine, near my neck.

I saw my lovely professor (all of the neuro team I have seen so far have been fab - bar one but you can’t have it all can you?!) a few weeks ago for the first time and he has diagnosed me with ‘mild MS’, yes, yes, I know but that is what he said, he explained that because I’ve only had sensory symptoms and they have cleared up so far, that he just wanted me to up my Vitamin D intake for now but that I will be seen again in a few months and they will keep an eye on me.

So, on Sunday I spent the day out with my kids, I was on my feet for the whole day. I got home and was shattered, then I got a little tingling in my left ankle, it didn’t seem to get any worse by yesterday morning, then during the day yesterday, on and off, I had tingling in my right hip (the ankle is still tingling!) now today I have had tingling on my left side of my head, just above my ear in my hair and it feels like it may be moving into my face too now. I’m still feeling tired (but not fatigued) and I can feel the anxiety (I could feel it this morning when I woke up). The question really is, is the anxiety because I’m worrying that this might be a relapse or could it be that this is the start of a relapse and the anxiety is just part of that (I had anxiety with my previous episodes)

At present, I am not in touch with my MS Nurses - I was told they would contact me but I’ve not had anything as yet, otherwise, I’d call them and ask… my thinking at the moment is wait and see if it continues or gets any worse but as I am newly diagnosed, I don’t know if I should be calling my Professors secretary or not!!!

Is it possible that I’ve just worn myself out by being on my feet all day on Sunday and my body just hasn’t recovered yet? I had to have a nap this afternoon and I am heading off to bed very soon…

If you’ve read this far, thank you and if you have any advice of any sort, that would be great!! :slight_smile:

I’ve read that anxiety and depression can be a precursor to an MS attack, but I don’t know how good the research is, sorry. However, if you get anxiety with relapses then perhaps it’s true for you at least, although weird symptoms are enough to make most people anxious so it must be tricky to separate it out.

It’s generally sensible to wait a day or two to see if rest will put things right (unless the symptoms are bad of course) so if you aren’t feeling better when you get up, it’s probably best to give the secretary a call to let him/her know what’s going on so they can update your records and to ask for the MS nurse’s contact details in case things get worse and you need help.

Hopefully it’s just from overdoing it the other day.

Rest lots!

Karen x

I’m relatively new to all this myself but I get tingling, on my shoulder blades, on my scalp, etc but I haven’t counted this as a relapse and just think of them as MS symptoms. When I had my first MS attack I was stressed beyond belief, so whether if was that coming on, or whether it started as a result of the stress I was feeling at the time I don’t know.

I do know that my body doesn’t seem to process stress like it used to and stress seems to almost send me “over the edge” very quickly.

The two attacks I think I’ve had were 1) when I had intense itching on my forehead and where numbness spread to my hand and then I had a weak left leg followed by my face dropping on the one side and 2) when I had very sore skin on my right side, which was then followed by numbness from my chest right down to the bottom of my right foot. When the second episode started I felt slightly unco-ordinated, shattered and stressed although it didn’t seem to be as big a “hit” as the first attack.

Another symptom I often feel is a kind of cold feeling on the skin which is almost like someone giving you a chinese burn, hard to describe.

Try to get plenty of rest if you can (with kids!) x