Shashi said...
I was just filling out a questionnaire for the sleep study evaluation appointment I have on Tuesday. One of the questions on the history asked for chief complaint. I wrote the following:
extreme fatigue, numbness, tingling, buzzing sensations, tremors, muscles spasms, muscle stiffness, muscle weakness, tinnitus in left ear, dizziness, heat intolerance, slurred speech, cognitive problems, memory problems
Then under the review of systems - neurological section, I checked off the following:
dizziness, concentration problems, memory problems, lethargy, speech difficulty, nausea, trouble with smell and taste, blurred vision, other visual changes, facial numbness/tingling, tinnitus, vertigo, hoarseness, weakness - arms, weakness - legs, numbness-arms, numbness - legs, paresthesias, stiffness, clumsiness, pain, poor balance, poor coordination, trouble walking, and incontinence - bladder
After reviewing what I'd written, I'm wondering how on earth there can be any doubt as to what I have! Every one of these dang symptoms are MS symptoms.
And while my doctors dawdle around, looking more at the mostly negative tests than at me as a person and at my symptoms and their effect on me, I'm just getting worse and worse. This week I've been too exhausted to even move and can barely walk because my legs are so weak.
How frustrating! What does it take to get off this danged Limbo Island?!!
(Sorry for the vent. I try to be patient, but when I see things going from bad to worse, it's hard to sit by and wait for whatever. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.)
You might want to go back through your list of symptoms and separate them into two categories: 1) those that can be tested for, observed by others, that are consistent and demonstrable and proveable..
2) those that I personally experience but which can't be tested for.
Things like strength, balance, bladder problems, vision problems -- can all be tested for. If the doctors have tested for them...but haven't found them...then, at least in their eyes, they don't exist for you. You might feel you experience them, but if they can't be "proven", then they don't count towards a diagnosis. That holds true for the sensory stuff: I can tell you that I feel like surfaces are wet all the time -- but there is no way to test for that, no way that the doctor can "find" it as a sign -- so for her, it doesn't exist. Same with numbness, tingling, buzzing sensations -- you may indeed feel those, but they aren't "proveable".
The sleep study is yet another test that might rule in..or rule out..what is going on with you. I hope you get some answers soon.