This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

Hello everyone. I have a quick question I thought maybe you could clear up for me.

For about 3-4 months I've been having, every night, when I lay down, this horrible burning/tingling/numbness in my right leg along the front and side of my thigh from the hip down to the top of my knee.

The thing is, it disappears if I stand up, almost instantly, but every time I lay down, there it is again. I'm a little worried.

I've had an mri of the brain and the doctor said it was completely normal, but I know MS can show up in the spinal cord.

Should I be concerned and push for more tests? Or does this sound like something benign that just needs more time to go away?

Thank you for your time, I wish you all the best of health.

Hi Acar,
I also have neuropathic pain, burning sensations, in my right foot. Mine are also worse when I lay on my back though they don't disappear when I stand up. I find that their severity is lessened if I lay on my side when I fall asleep (it's difficult, if not impossible, to fall asleep on my back due to the burning pain).

NHE

NHE, ever had your magnesium level checked?

acar, i am looking up postural neuropathic pain. here's what i've found so far:

http://www.ehow.com/about_5098959_resting-leg-pain.html

Atherosclerosis
•Atherosclerosis is the progressive narrowing and hardening of the arteries, which is caused by aging as well as other factors. As the condition worsens, pain or burning sensations can be felt in the lower extremities. These occur when a person is lying down. This resting leg pain is worse when lying down because blocked arteries in the leg do not allow sufficient blood flow to the feet and toes. To relieve this pain, the sufferer might have to hang his legs off the side of a bed

At Rest Leg Pain At Night
•Sometimes a person might get a leg cramp while resting in bed. It can be an uncontrollable spasm of a calf muscle and the pain can range from mild to severe. These attacks can be chronic for some individuals or an occasional occurrence for others. While they might happen for unknown reasons, it is known that dehydration, as well as certain medications, can cause resting leg pain. Leg cramps can also be the sign of more serious problems, such as atherosclerosis or thyroid disease.

given these search results, you may want to investigate your magnesium, zinc and vitamin E status to see if those could be contributing your leg pain when lying down.

also, C reactive protein accelerates atherosclerosis so you might want to have a look at that level too.

both magnesium and vit E bring down C reactive protein levels.

vit E is low in MS patients during exacerbation. interferon helps boost vit E levels (never mind just getting enough dietary vit E )
source: http://www.springerlink.com/content/dflv5gx818uhy8dd/

to optimize your levels of mag zinc and E, aim for the averages seen in 'healthy controls' in studies comparing nutritional status in health and disease (doesn't matter what disease).

this approach gets you a much narrower and effective target range as opposed to accepting that your levels are 'normal' (from what i've seen to date, 'normal' only means stats normal - to get an abnormal result you have to have THE lowest or THE highest result ever seen at your lab before!)

targets established in the literature:
*you want your magnesium level to be at least 0.91 mmol/L
*zinc should be around 18 umol/L (17 to 19 is ok)
*vitamin E status probably around 26 mmol/L
(NB vit E is tougher - there are 8 components to the complex but in my experience most labs only offer alpha-tocopherol testing).

Vit E health and disease studies:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17593769
Int J Adolesc Med Health. 2007 Apr-Jun;19(2):177-86.
Biochemical assessments of retinol, alpha-tocopherol, ...in adolescent professional basketball players and sedentary controls.
...all plasma vitamin levels were significantly higher in basketball players (...vitamin E: 26.45 +/- 0.72 mmol/l, ...) than sedentary controls (...vitamin E: 19.24 +/- 0.73 mmol/l ...) (p < 0.01).

article link
Alpha tocopherol (mmol/l) (Ranges)
MS patients 22.05 ^ 2.05* (16.74–25.31)
Healthy Controls 26.20 ^ 1.99 (21.44–33.28)

from this set of studies i'm taking away that mid-high vit E is optimal.

just a tidbit on the differences between vit E complex components:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8568478
J Intern Med. 1996 Feb;239(2):111-7.
Gamma, but not alpha, tocopherol levels in serum are reduced in coronary heart disease patients.

fyi most commercial vit E supplements are just alpha-tocopherol. taking just alpha-tocopherol actually drives down gamma tocopherol, changes the natural alpha/gamma ratio.

gamma tocopherol has a number of important contributions to health, not just heart disease but as a tumor suppressant.

dark leafy greens and raw sunflower seeds are good whole food dietary choices for augmenting vit E status.
more info: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... oodsources

hope that helps!
jimmylegs

Thanks guys.

I will look into some of those tests. I have been taking magnesium and zinc and vitamin e actually.

I guess my real question was... could this burning be a sign of MS? again, it only happens when im laying on my back, and rarely when I'm sitting down.

Do symptoms from MS come and go so quickly? I know they are episodic, but do they last for longer before they potentially resolve? Or can they do this sort of thing, where they only show up for a few minutes here and there based on variables like body position, etc?

the classic 'here one second, gone the next' symptom for ms is called lhermitte's sign, and it's associated with brief feelings of electrical shock caused by irritating lesions sites through movement of the spine. i used to get lhermitte's early on but i don't any more. i never got it lying down. it was always related to moving my neck.

anyway besides what NHE contributed, there might be others who have rapidly transient positional symptoms, but i can't think of any more off-hand right now.

IIMA acar, what forms and daily doses of zinc, magnesium and vit E have you been taking?