Still not full diagnosed but they found lesion on brain and spine 5 years ago. Before I went numb and tingly all over and had some cognitive problems. Few months ago I got really achey arms and legs and that went they done another mri just waiting on the results. My question is… do old symptoms come back? And if they do are they relapses or is it just because of the nerves etc have been damaged so it comes on? From time to time I get pins and needles in feet and hands and my arms ache I don’t know if this is relapsing or just something that will come and go? Currently getting no help on the matter and the dr doesn’t know fa. It’s really frustrating I’m almost hoping they’ll diagnose me with it so at least I can then get some support.
Just supposing it is MS, then yes, symptoms can reoccur. This is the MS Trust webpage on what counts as a relapse: Managing relapses | MS Trust
A relapse could be new or recurrent symptoms that last for at least 24 hours and have reoccurred at least a month since the previous time.
Equally, many of us with MS (even the relapsing remitting variety), live with constant symptoms. For example, I never properly felt my feet in the same way after my very first relapse. Gradually the nerves manage to compensate for damaged nerves and/or you get used to altered sensations so what was once ‘normal’, becomes your ‘new normal’.
I had 5 years between my first MS symptoms (and tests, including MRI and lumbar puncture) and eventual diagnosis. During the intervening time, I had odd times of strange sensory attacks, optic neuritis, spasms, falls and a bunch of other probable relapses. I managed to successfully ignore them, up until the point when I couldn’t any more, and was diagnosed following a further MRI.
But, just because your experience sounds fairly similar to mine, doesn’t mean the end result will be the same.
Hopefully you’ll get the results of your new MRI very soon, and maybe a diagnosis or a definitive non diagnosis.
Thanks for your response. Would you get new lesions with same symtoms? It’s all very confusing! I feel like I’m moaning about the smallest of things. I currently have spasticity in my arms feel tired and have pins and needles so nothing to major it’s just annoying more than anything and makes me worry about the future
Ooh I don’t know about the same lesions. I don’t think lesions vanish when your relapse is over though. As far as I understand it (which is really amateur hour standard), a lesion is a scar. So the more relapses you have over time, the more lesions you would have. New periods of inflammation show up as ‘enhancing’ lesions, showing that your MS is ‘active’. While old lesions are ‘non-enhancing’. So I’d expect that a new relapse might show up on a scan in a similar area.
You could get on going symptoms from neurological damage caused by earlier inflammatory attacks though.
But obviously don’t take my word for it.
I do know that (apparently) I don’t have huge numbers of lesions on my brain. But I’ve had MS for almost 22 years and many, many relapses over that time.