Hello, I am a 33 yr old female with 3 children. I have just recently begun to experience symptoms that I fear are MS and I wanted to hear some others stories around first symptoms and diagnosis process.
My story started with hand pain, both hands but predominantly my right. I had bad pain and trouble gripping things, doing fine motor things like braiding my daughters hair, and holding heavy items for long periods. I also had tingly in hands, thumb, and up arms, and weakness in arms. My tingly was often at night and in my thumb and I thought I had carpal tunnel (in sales and type a lot for a living).
Fast forward 3 months – I have been to hand specialist (started out there suspecting carpal tunnel) and gotten tested for RH factors, ANA, nerve conduction study. Nerve conduction was negative for CT. RH factors were negative for rheumatoid arthritis (according to hand doc) and ANA levels only slightly elevated 1:40. He referred me to GP.
Between that appt. and GP, my symptoms increased and spread. Tingly and cold sensations are in hands, arms, legs, feet, toes, and even scalp. Very sporadic and not the same day by day or hour by hour. There have even been a handful of days “symptom free”. One big one is the soles of my feet – especially in the morning, are tingly with prickly/stabbing pain when I walk. Each step I take around the house is “ow, ow, ow” with the steps. This is worst with bare feet hitting the floor, slightly better when wearing shoes.
I have a low grade fever almost every day – late morning to early afternoon. By low grade I mean 99.2 to 99.5 and my dr. told me that doesn’t even count as a fever. To me it counts, as I normally run 98 degrees or even lower, and when I spike these I can always tell as I feel it in addition to exhaustion.
I have had restless leg syndrome at night making it hard to fall asleep a handful of times.
The only other odd symptom I’ve had has only occurred twice (thankfully!) and it has been sporadic itching all over my body. It started in palms then moved and jumped to my body parts randomly, keeping me up and scratching until wee hours of the morning. Very annoying.
I went yesterday for blood work from my GP and he called for thyroid testing, CBC, metabolic I believe to rule out thyroid, vitamin D defficiency and diabetes. I just got the call that all that bloodwork was normal.
I do have a follow up next week where my GP will be reviewing bloodwork results from RH factor that had been called for originally by the hand specialist. When I told GP the hand doc. said I didn’t have rheumatoid arthritis, he told me that diagnosis is not that cut and dry and he needs to see bloodwork. It’s being sent to him so I guess I’ll hear his thoughts next week at follow up.
I think at this point I probably need to be referred to neurology. I just don’t know next steps or what to do and am feeling a bit crazy. I might be finding a new GP as well since mine isn’t the most understanding and tends to make me feel like a hypochondriac. But this is definitely not normal for my body and my active lifestyle as a mom of 3 is suffering.
I would appreciate any insight in to your experiences, diagnosis steps and lengths, or your thoughts on if my symptoms sound like MS.
Thank you!
hi mewee
it could be ms, then again it could be any number of things which present with similar symptoms.
when you next see your gp, ask him if he will refer you to neurology.
a neurologist is the only person who can diagnose ms.
meanwhile try to stay calm and stress free, difficult with 3 small children but believe me, stress just makes everything worse.
carole x