This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

I've been having some problems with muscle pain for about a year now, and people have suggested MS, but I'm not sure what MS muscle pain is like. I was wondering if you all would mind explaining the muscle pain/cramping that you have.

Here are the problems I've been experiencing:

For about a year now, I've been having pain in my muscles. There are times when I can't even write. My muscles will kind of tense/cramp/hurt, but it goes away in less that a minute. It can be pretty bad, though. Sometimes just yawning or swallowing will cause my muscles to cramp(if that's the right word) and hurt.
Last month, I had a week where I was having problems with swallowing. Pills felt like they were stuck in my throat. I had some scary moments where a pill wouldn't go up or down and I was afraid I'd choke. Whenever I ate, I'd cough a lot and I felt like everything was going down the wrong way, and I couldn't seem to fully swallow anything-I felt like I kept regurgitating my food because it kept coming up. Also, I kept having bladder problems-I couldn't hold my urine and would end up not making it to the bathroom which is extremely embarrasing. My leg also felt cold and like it was "falling asleep". Those things just lasted for a week, though, but I do still get the leg falling asleep/coldness sometimes.

I have such a hard time with concentrating. I used to be able to teach myself anything just from reading and now I have times when I can read a page of material and can't even pull the words together enough to understand anything.
I'm sorry this is so long. I appreciate any thoughts.

Hi K123,

I'm so sorry you're dealing with all these problems! But...actually I don't know what you mean by "MS muscle pain." That's not necessarily an MS symptom, unless it refers to "spasticity", which is a concept that I haven't been able to figure out myself after several years of reading on MS forums.

Here's a link to one of my favorite MS sites that gives a very comprehensive overview of MS and would probably answer a lot of your questions.
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/explainingms.html

Still, before you get too far into MS research, you should go straight to a doctor who can investigate your complaints and steer you to the testing that can help you get answers. Although a few of your symptoms may sound a bit like MS, they could also be from something simple and easy to treat instead.

There isn't a single symptom that is exclusive to MS, and it often takes quite awhile to come up with an MS diagnosis, because there isn't a single definite test for it either. It becomes a matter of excluding other medical conditions instead.

Feel free to keep exploring the site and asking questions, but almost any question or symptom you have has already been discussed here as well, so you might try the "search" function at the top of the page, too.

Good luck to you, and I hope you find some relief!

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Dx'd with MS & HNPP (hereditary peripheral neuropathy) 7/03 but must have had MS for 30 yrs before that. I've never taken meds for MS or MS symptoms except 1 yr experiment on LDN. (I found diet, exercise, sleep, humor, music help me the most.)

I used to get cramps but they were in my legs, till eventually I found magnesium helped, and also making sure my legs and feet were well covered at night.

Your problem could be one of many neurological conditions but I doubt it is MS, in fact it may not even be a physical illness. Stress causes muscular tension in all kinds of strange ways, not just in the usual places such as the shoulders, hands and stomach. Facial paralysis, for example, often occurs when people are going through stressful times. After all, you sound stressed out from the sound of it...can't concentrate on things any more, etc.

If stress were behind your initial muscular problems a year ago, alarm about the cause of the trouble could have led to more stress and consequently much more frequent and worsening muscular problems in a kind of cycle in which more and more stress creates more and more symptoms. Of course this is only one possibilty, but do not underestimate the power of the mind over the body!

There could also be a deficiency such as magnesium or salt in your diet, or a poor diet generally. It could even be something like failing to stretch after exercise your body isn't used to (you need to stretch after certain exercises as you get older) or recent exposure to cold through inadequate cover with bedclothes.

gainsbourg

you can get muscle pain from either d3, or as gains has suggested, low magnesium.

personally, after taking high doses of d3 for its anti-inflammatory properties, i started to have more spasticity problems and definitely more pain and IN PARTICULAR severe and frightening swallowing issues.

that, i discovered, was magnesium deficiency. it was like night and day when the magnesium kicked in. i got a recognizable 'knock' in my throat when the mag took effect. all better now! and if you're female and pre-menopausal, you can say goodbye to cramps once you get on a magnesium regimen.

after making my way through a variety of products over the last three years, the best form in terms of absorbability seems to be magnesium glycinate (albion chelated) - i have 400mg pills by carlson. pretty good stuff. ie you can take a couple a day without getting the runs.

i'd recommend you investigate your vitamin d3 level [25(OH)d3 not 1,25(OH)2d3] and magnesium level. if you come back here with your results, numbers and units, we can tell you if you're in the right ballpark.

FYI magnesium and d3: both highly suspect in fibromyalgia..

hope this helps!
jimmylegs

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my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

oh and i just did a quick search on magnesium and cognition, and that's right on the money too.

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

Hi,

I had a problem a couple of years ago with my legs. The muscles felt really tight and achy. It hurt to sit down because it would stretch my muscles out, so I stood a lot. My legs were in enough pain where it would keep me up at night. So I would take some ibuprofen at night and it would take away enough pain so I could fall asleep. This lasted for about three weeks and then went away.

Alicia

Thank you everyone for taking your time to read and answer my post. I am definitely going to start taking magnesium. When I read about MS, it didn't really sound like I had it except for some of the problems that I was having that one particular week, but I was confused on MS pain and didn't really understand what exactly was being described. I didn't realize that MS didn't cause muscle pain. I appreciate your answers.
I will be very interested to see if the magnesium help.
Thanks again.