Posted 7/18/2017 1:53 PM (GMT 0)
Hello, I am new here-- and have a question that I hope someone can answer. I apologize if this is lengthy:
Back in January, I woke up and couldn't see very well from my right eye. I thought it was eye strain and made an appointment with my eye doctor. He checked my eyes and gave me some stronger contacts and I thought that would be it. However, the next day, I could barely see with the new prescription and noticed my color vision was off in the right eye. I went back and he sent me to a retina specialist because he thought I had the beginnings of a detached retina. The specialist ran countless tests and couldn't find anything wrong, but suggested I have an MRI just to make sure I didn't have something going on with my optic nerve. My MRI showed: "Multiple foci of increased T2 and FLAIR signal in the periventricular and subcortical white matter bilaterally. The largest on the right measures 1.3 cm. The largest on the left measures 9.5mm. Several of the foci demonstrate a perpendicular orientation to the corpus callosum." I was sent to a neurologist and was asked a hundred questions- and things I thought were just weird things over the years (electricity feeling shooting down my neck/spine, tingling hands/feet, clumsiness, brain fog, forgetfulness, my legs just 'giving out' and me falling, a case of what I thought was Bell's Palsy but the neuro said no).... combined with my MRI made him suspect I had MS. I had another MRI of my neck and spine and one lesion was found on my cervical area. I was started on meds immediately with a brand new diagnosis of MS.
He also ordered lab work and my ANA kept coming back positive (three times) so I was sent to a rheumatologist. I just got a call saying all my tests were negative except the one for Sjrgren's, which was positive and he wanted to put me on some medication for it, no big deal.
The more I read though, the more confused I get. Can you have both of these diseases? Was I possibly misdiagnosed with MS? The rheumatologist didn't see too concerned and I haven't seen my neuro again since then. I do have the classic 'Dawson's finger lesions' on my scan... so I'm just freaking out wondering if I now have two things to deal with or if I was misdiagnosed all along.... any help is appreciated!