Heading towards a MS diagnosis?

Hi all! I’m a 20 year old college student who has become increasingly nervous about symptoms I’ve been having. I hope someone can help me find out if this sounds like MS. Sorry for the long post, I tried to summarize the major parts of my story. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It was close to beginning of the year when I remember waking up and thinking I saw my arm tremor. I went back to bed thinking it was more of a dream and I was going nuts. Next night it happened again. I still didn’t think anything of it.

As time went by I began noticing more and more…odd symptoms. They have never been debilitating but more like annoyances. Besides this odd tremor, I remember reading a book and seeing the text slowly shift back and forth. I closed my book and opened it again, it still was doing it. It stopped after a few minutes.

Towards the beginning of summer I started having a multitude of symptoms. I had this eye pain and shooting ear pain. I had no idea what it was. So I went to see a doc and she thought I had a nose infection….I knew I didn’t but just accepted it. Couple weeks passed and no luck. It was around this time when I really started becoming nervous. For 2 reasons, 1) My fingers have begun to tremor more often but also I would have the weird single finger tremor. 2) Around this time it would happen before I’d fall asleep but entire body would feel like a tremor/tingling feeling. It happens right before I fall asleep every time.

I then later saw an eye specialist and an ear and nose specialist. Both of them said I was normal but the Ear guy thought I had some panic attack problem. I have a lot of hate for any of these words (panic, stress, anxiety) because it’s like they are forcing a diagnosis that isn’t there. I’ve t never been nervous about much.
One morning I woke up and noticed that my eye lid felt a little thicker and it kind of got stuck when trying to open. I slept with a dark shirt over my eyes that night so I assumed that was the problem. Looking into the mirror I could tell my eye lid was lower. I drove to school and it got better but on the way home my eyes became cloudy. It took literally like 2 minutes for it to go away. I still don’t know if this was just my shirt or not. Mainly because of all the random symptoms I’ve been having.

So the ear guy gave me Prozac told me to see a psychiatrist and told me he thinks its panic attacks. This was about three months ago. I requested for a MRI. He gave it to me. And I took it to a nero. Apparently he’s supposed to be really good.

I told him the story above and he thought it was stress. He looked at the MRI and said it was normal. He also ordered blood texts that were also normal. He had me squeeze his fingers and close my eyes and touch my nose. Gave me Lexapro…didn’t work. Gave me some other anxiety drug….didnt work.
I was working on the computer one day and my thighs started to twitch. Nothing much, but annoying. Along with being itchy all over my body. The twitching and itching happens anywhere now. Even may neck… I also had real bad eye pain. No lost of sight just eye pain. I seem to have blood shot eyes now.

I went back and this time I got nervous. He said typically these symptoms should have been gone by now. He said he was nervous about my symptoms. I was sssoooooooooooo thrown off by this comment. When I first met him, he was sure I had nothing serious. This comment still gives me shivers. I told him about my eye pain the night before, her checked them. Said they were normal. I guess if it was ON, he would have seen it. He seems also in limbo, not exactly knowing what I have. So he gave me another stress drug. I think he’s hoping by chance it works. I just finished taking proaxema (I think that’s how its spelt, don’t feel like checking) again…it didn’t work.

I feel completely in limbo and it sucks. My fingers are typically always shaky. And now my body muscles always seem like to twitch anywhere at any time of day. My body also itches…a lot. These four characteristics always seem to have stuck around…muscle twitches, tremor fingers, tingle body (nose and around eyes a lot), and itchy skin.

I go to bed now and it’s like my body is an orchestra. My jaw loves to tremor during this sleep phase. All these elements seem to love to show up RIGHT before I sleep. But much worse. My head will have this tendency to have this jump action before sleep. It will jolt to the left or right uncontrollably. It’s not a shake; it’s like this one shot thing. It will happen and then I just reset. My arm does this jolt thing too sometime. I get toes tremors now, the list goes on. I’ve also had these interesting dreams where right before something comes at me I will just jolt awake. Last time it was a football. I’m guessing this is a nightmare thanks to me always trying to figure out what’s wrong.

What really has become irritating is being told its stress or anxiety. You know what stresses me out? Being told I have some type of anxiety problem when I know I don’t. It’s annoying because my family thinks it’s all in my head now and has taken the doctors talking points.

So I have taken 4 different stress pills. None did any good. I actually have to give the doctor a call later today to tell him how I am. I was thinking of maybe working out and eating really healthy for a month to see if that does anything.

What I’m asking is does this sound like MS? I’ll be honest; I’ll be really pissed if I do end up having it. Having a disease in the prime of life would kinda suck.

What continues to keep in limbo though is that I don’t seem to have the same symptoms a lot of you guys do. I never have bad fatigue, never have muscle weakness, besides some eye pain I haven’t had double vision or have gone partly blind. My head MRI looks good and blood tests look good. I’m also under my families insurance and well…these tests are expensive, so are the drugs.

I also hear about these flashes people go through. Like they are hit with one of their symptoms and are knocked out for 24 hours. I’ve never had that. I just sort of have this constant continuation.

The doctor didn’t think I had anything serious when I first met him. I’m not so sure now. I’m also not sure what I should do. I’ve been dealing with this for almost a year now and it’s irritating not figuring out what’s wrong. In a way, I want to figure it out but I sometimes feel the unknown will be much better than the soon to be known.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Thoughts are great!

Post Edited (MikeRules88) : 9/28/2008 3:54:35 AM (GMT-6)

I too am in limbo, and also have been accused of being stressed. All I can say is do what I am doing and keep a daily journal of your symptoms. Keep it as breif but truthful as you can so you don't get the anxiety diagnosis again. Keep going to your doctor from time to time and show him the journal. With MS, the symptoms tend to come and go. You may have a period of time when you feel fine or have less symptoms then you get hit all at once and feel bad for awhile.

Check out other disease forums to see if your symptoms are similar.

Best of Luck.

Thanks SO much for your responses!

I talked to the Doc and he thought it would be a good idea to do this work out/ eating healthy thing for a month. God I hope it works, I have this odd feeling that it wont. But you gatta keep hoping right? The journal does sound like a good idea.

Just out of curiosity, what keeps the Doc from diagnosing you guys with MS? I think mine doesn't because I don't have one of the MAJOR symptoms of MS. Like ON, weakness, fatigue, or just muscles not working.

Also this may sound completely idiotic. But what are the chances for a cure with this disease? Everything I've read makes this disease sound like a living hell to deal with. I'm surprised that it isn't very focused upon much in a mainstream perspective. Would stem cell research be a gateway to finding a cure quickly?
Just looking for a injection of hope with this thing. lol.

Hey MikeRules88,

My symptoms match yours very very closely. COuld you please tell me what you ended up being diagnosed with, and if your symptoms are much worse now then they were before. I am 23 years old, and am freaking out by my current symptoms. Please let me know you situation, and hope your are doing well

When I was 35 years old I started having MS symptoms, just some dizziness and tingling. I had an MS work up that showed basically nothing out of the ordinary. Over the years I continued to show signs of "something". I had already long forgotten about my previous MS symptoms from years ago, you see, I'm overweight by at least 75 lbs and everything was blamed on that or my bad back (another story for another forum).  In June 2011 I got hit hard with multiple MS symptoms and when I started slurring whole sentences I went back to the doc. It has taken a year for a DX, I am 52 years old.