Does anyone else have MS?

[TwistedTerri]

Has anyone else been diagnosed with MS? My diagnosis was Fibromyalgia for years and more recently ADHD. When my new psychiatrist evaluated me for the ADHD, she noticed some neurological things and called my family doc who treats the fibro. My family doc called me in for an evaluation and changed my diagnosis from Fibro to MS. I have an appointment with a neurologist next month to have a spinal tap to either confirm or drop the MS diagnosis. Has anyone else experienced anything similar to this? If so, would you care to share your experiences? Thanks!

[Vickie]

I have MS. After my 10 year old was born, I had an exaserbation each week for the first 5 week post partum. Because of the high activity, diagnosis was quick and rather easy. Have you had an MRI to look for plaques?

Generally, it is much harder to get the diagnosis because it takes time to recognize the pattern of nerve damage and getting better (relapsing/remitting). There is a lot of good information at NMSS:

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/

[QueensU_girl]

If MS is ruled out, you may want to contact or search at NORD.

www.nord

The National Organization for Rare Diseases.

My ex had a cycling/episodic muscular condition like MS, but it was not. It turned out he had MELAS Syndrome or MERRF, or something.

Just b/c they can't tell you a name, doesn't mean you aren't sick.

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I recall learning that often women's MS symptoms look "mental" (duh, it's a neurological disease).

This is because the very early effects can have a person winding up on the psych. ward, for having mental health symptoms.

The mental effects in MS can come in the EARLY stages of illness; whereas, in somthing like Parkinsons', the mental effects (that disease can cause hallucinations; depression) tend to come at the END. It's just the patterns and stages of symptoms of the particular neuro. disorder.

I knew of one case where the Family Doctor was ready to diagnose "conversion disorder" or "hysteria" or some crud (due to limb tingling/numbness), combined with the women's uptight personality style. ANYWAY, she proceeded to start having visual field loss (blindness, sorta), and my SO (psychiatrist) thankfully had more training and experience, so as to know it was the optic nerve being affected (r/t MS!)

So many times he has found medical reasons for people's "craziness". (I tend to beleive all things are explainable; we just don't have the science yet to explain things! Stupid humans. )

N.B. Point: Don't let the turkeys getcha down, if they try to pull any of that sort of crud with you.

[TwistedTerri]

Hey, Guys, I went to the nord website and it wasn't a medical website. It was kind of like a yellow pages website. But thank you for the tip anyway. I've had all the MS tests (I think) except the visual tests and lumbar puncture (aka spinal tap). Everything comes back normal. It's like I've been told and already knew, there is no definite way to rule out MS. I met a lady, a nurse, who had disabiling MS symptoms for 30 years before she developed a brain lesion. She knew she had MS, but I think legally ya can't prescribe the shots without a brain lesion. Well, I'll just keep doing what I can do in the meantime, I guess. My family doc, psychiatrist and therapist all call it MS. My neurologist calls it "general neuropathy" until something pops up on a test to show her something for sure. I think it's MS or Parkinson's for sure. MS runs in my family. I think it could be Parkinson's because of research I did. Parkinson's tends to happen more in farm land and I just moved to farm land right before this. Also Parkinson's before age 40 tends to show less as tremors and more as other symptoms like pain and vertigo. I'm not quite 40 yet. Well, thank you for the input. I do need to get my eyes checked for sure. I would like to have the LP just for answers. Also live in an old house that's probably contaminated with who knows what, molds for sure. I'm rambling. Just thank you all for your feedback. Any other ideas? If so, keep it coming.

[QueensU_girl]

Try this link below. (They changed their website address. Sorry.)

Yup. NORD specialises in Rare Diseases.

http://www.rarediseases.org/

I am wondering if you may have something rare, due to the lack of your docs being able to figure you out, as I see at least 8 types of Neuropathy listed, even on that Database.

Are there any larger medical centres with Neurology near you? One can go thru a lot of Doctors trying to find out what it really going on!