Hello everyone. I am sorry if this post irritates anyone - I imagine most of you have been through a terrible time suffering with MS, the last thing you need is a health anxious person like myself landing on the forum, pestering you with what could be quite silly concerns.
As I said, I do suffer with health anxiety quite a lot and this can sometimes lead me to needlessly worry about non existent health issues. That said, there have been some strange goings on of late that lead me to think there is a chance I might have the early warning signs of MS. I was hoping you might offer some opinion?
I am British, but live in Thailand - the hospitals over here are truly first class and many of them feel like 5 star hotels. The only problem is, many of the doctors who are based in these flash hospitals are incompetent, and I say this with no malice, it is what it is but truly, whatever your issue is, the doctors over here tend to ask very little questions and palm you off with antibiotics for most things. Anyway, 2 years ago I had intense bladder problems in the form of searing bladder pain. I found it real hard to pee and had to go every 20 minutes, a trickle at a time. One doctor diagnosed prostatitis - another doctor, 6 weeks later, diagnosed cystitis. The episode lasted around 2 months and since then, it has been on and off, flaring up occasionally but never as bad as those first 2 months. I have a constant low level pain in my bladder, more of a discomfort than anything, and pee way more often than I did prior to this issue. I have been on a truck load of different antibiotics, nothing has ever helped.
Then, for the last couple of months I have been experiencing strange tingling all over my body, but mostly face, feet and hands. I would not go as far as saying pins and needles, its hard to explain, more like very light twitching, imperceptible to look at, more of a feeling. Like an itch that needs scratching. It feels like someone is sticking a toothpick onto my skin, very lightly.
Over the last 2 weeks, I have been blindsided by random bouts of feeling very tired. Apparently MS fatigue completely renders you bedridden, is that right? The episodes I have been having are not anything like that, it is more of a feeling of being really, really tired out of the blue. For example I usually really enjoy taking the dog out for a walk, but a couple of times this week I have sat on the sofa for 20 mins willing myself to get up and walk him, but when I get to the door I think ‘Im knackered, I just cant be bothered’ and return to the sofa. That is unusual for me. This is not a daily issue, it comes and goes. I have been having afternoon sleeps for 2 or 3 hours also, that is a new thing for me. Coupled with this, I had a real heavy headache for 4 days. I have never had a headache for 4 days in my life, usually they are gone within a few hours. This headache was with me from the moment I woke up until bedtime. The headache sudenly vanished when I woke up today.
Finaly, I have had a pain behind the eye today. This could be a lingering result of the 4 days headache, or it could be something more alarming? Its not an unbearable pain, more of an ache than anything and I feel it more when I move my eye.
There is one more thing - but I would be suprised if this is related - I picked up a random, out of the blue tennis elbow in January which has never gone away. I cant think of one possible reason why I have strained the tendon, I play no sports.
So the bladder issue for 2 years together with the more recent tingles, random fatigue, 4 day headache and now this bloody eyeball pain… They could be symptoms of MS am I right in saying?
As I said, I live in Thailand. The local hospitals to me in the north of the country would be a complete waste of time for anything like this. They have all the imaging kit like MRI, CT etc but they have no MS specialists up here and only part time neurologists. I know if I consult them, they will throw me under an MRI, look at the results for a nano second and declare all is well. To get this checked out properly, I need to go to Bangkok which is 800 KM away but we have a further 30 day lockdown in the country which means I cant travel, even for a medical thing. I am going crazy worrying about this and was hoping you guys might be able to offer a little in the way of opinion, in the meantime?
I dont know if this is relevant or not by I was addicted to opioids for 10 years and I worry I have caused some damage which may have caused something scary. I was prescribed Tramadol for a painful ear infection, found myself getting hooked on the things and for 10 years I abused them on and off quite heavily. I am self employed, working remotely online and I am ashamed to say the tramadol helped me work longer hours and focus much more, making mundane admin tasks quite enjoyable. I would abuse them for 3 or 4 months, then go cold turkey and stop for a couple of months and then abuse them again for a further 3 or 4 months, that was the cycle. One of the side affects of the abuse was nightly seizures - not full blown ‘fit’ type seizures, more so random ‘jerking’, usualy when I was in bed sleeping (the jerks would wake me up frequently). I am 100% clean now, have been for 8 months and live a healthy lifestyle (kind of) but again, I worry the abuse caused some kind of neurological damage.
I am 46 years old, male, I dont drink too much (the odd beer here and there) but I do smoke.
Sorry for the long post - any feedback on this would be really appreciated! Am I worrying over nothing? I have a feeling I might not be, I mean all of these symptoms are massive red flags for MS surely?
Thanks so much
Batty