Having suggestive symptoms and very scared :(

[xcv1996]

Hi everyone,

I am a 20-year-old female and I've been having symptoms over the past few months that have left me terrified that I have MS. I've had joint pain that initially started in the right shoulder but has moved all over my body. My legs go to sleep very easily and I've had pins and needles, numbness, and hot/cold sensations in my hands and feet. One time, I got out of the shower and my entire right leg felt like someone had thrown ice water on it. I also had two bouts of vertigo when getting out of the shower.

I have icepick headaches and headaches that start in one temple and move to the next. Sometimes, I have mild migraines, pressure around the eyes and temples, and random pains in my head and face throughout the day. I've had prickly feelings in the back of my neck and pain in the neck and collarbones as well. These headaches are not severe and do not wake me up out of my sleep or anything like that.

The thing that is scaring me most is the widespread fasciculations that started in my calves and slowly moved everywhere. They went to my legs, buttocks, thighs, and arms and now I have them in my palms, fingers, arms, ribs, upper back, neck, eyelids, lips, cheeks, chin, and forehead. Following those symptoms, I had pressure and paresthesias in my face. A hot spot for the paresthesia is the area from my right cheek to my chin. It is a very weird feeling, it's almost like I have ants moving around under my skin and I feel like I can "wipe" the sensation away (if that makes sense) but it just comes back. Googling 'chin paresthesia' has left me terrified that I have a serious disease.

I went to my doctor and he diagnosed me with a pinched nerve in my neck by just feeling some pressure points in the area between my clavicle and my neck that hurt very badly when he did so. He did a CBC that came out normal but did not test for anything else. He gave me gabapentin and some ibuprofen and sent me on my way and told me to come back if my symptoms get worse and then he'll look into getting MRI's and things of that sort done. I feel like I have been misdiagnosed because I've read on the internet that pinched nerves in the neck do not cause some of the symptoms I am having.

I have not had any gait issues, vision loss (although I do get pressure and pain in my eyes sometimes), or tremors. I have had increased instances where I will forget what I am about to do but that's the only memory issue I've had. I am a full time student and my cognitive abilities seem fine.

I already have bad anxiety and it has only worsened with all of these symptoms. I am scheduling my followup appointment for next week and I am very anxious to see what is going on. I know that those of you who are dealing with MS are probably tired of people like me who run to this board and may be overreacting and jumping to conclusions (I will admit that I am a hypochondriac -_-), but I am just looking for some insight or reassurance from people who have had symptoms similar to mine.

[Scott1]

Hi,

In terms of pressure points I wouldn't let a doctor touch me. Try an osteopath, a sports massage or similar. That's what they deal with all day. If you do have nerve compression causing at least some of these symptoms then do something about it by seeing someone who is going to crawl all over you and find the tight spots and release them. Its quite possible that more than one thing can be going on so eliminate the simple things to see if there is a deeper problem.
The gabapentin can make you drowsy so don't think things are suddenly getting worse.
Also, don't guess. Take the information your doctor has given you and do something about it. Don't assume a pill will fix things. If you have tight muscles and you release them they feel weak. You need to do some exercise to rebuild them, ideally eccentric movement like Pilates or Yoga.
Regards,

[jimmylegs]

hi and welcome. my standard message is this: make sure you are giving your body everything it needs for optimal health. see what clears up. make sure the doctor's assessment is not being clouded by nutrient deficit symptoms.

the doc will go through the process of sifting through the symptoms to rule out ms or not, and it will take patience. no one test is the clincher.

in the meantime it is your responsibility to make sure you are meeting public health recommendations on a day to day basis. if you need help, perhaps you can ask for a referral to a nutritionist. he or she should be able to pick up on any issues and steer you in the right direction. three day diet diaries often provide a reasonably clear picture of the status quo, and pick up on where improvements can be made.

public health departments know people do not eat enough healthy foods to meet day to day minimum essential nutrient requirements. societally, the prevalence of chronic disease bears this out. meanwhile at the doc's office, clinical tests of nutrient status aren't set up to detect milder deficits, only more severe deficiency.

there are a handful of key nutrient deficits associated with ms, and with anxiety as well. because of the anxiety in the picture, i have the feeling it would be best to deal with that first. a health-oriented learning curve can be steep and it will be easier to cope if you're not freaking out. even though there are several nutrients implicated in anxiety, i think magnesium would be one you'd be most likely to notice working first.

you have to eat anyway, and the best way to get mag is in whole food. here are some nutrient dense healthy options.
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... #foodchart
you can see the amount per serving. the dark leafy green amounts are based on those foods having been boiled for a short time to increase the density of plant material that fits inside a cup measure, and also to remove excess oxalic acid (eg 3 mins for chard 1 min for spinach).
to do the math on this one, ppl need 7-10 mg per kg of body weight *every day*.

other options for boosting your mag status include things like epsom salts baths, swimming in sea water if you have access, or supplement products.
many magnesium supplements are cheap and terrible. some are fabulous and ridiculously expensive. here are a couple of options that are kind of down the middle:
http://naturalvitality.com/natural-calm/ that one you mix flavoured mag citrate powder into water or whatever and enjoy. i don't use it right now but in the past i had a plain one and i hear good things about a couple of the flavoured options
http://orangenaturals.com/essential/mag ... g-60v-cap/ that one is reasonably priced and i have used it for years quite happily
http://www.aor.ca/en/product/magnesium-glycinate this i have never seen in stores but i do use a few of this company's products. i would probably get this if i saw it on shelves somewhere.
http://www.aor.ca/en/product/advanced-magnesium-complex picked that up for the first time the other day, but have not opened it up yet. it's an experiment. it costs twice as much as the orange naturals one so we'll just see if it seems like it's worth it.

the other thing i stumbled on the other day was a water filter like a brita but it adds minerals back into the water after removing contaminants: https://santevia.com/alkaline-water-pitchers/
i like it so far.

most of the time growing up i felt like i was running on a chronic low to mid burn anxiety as my status quo. one time a pharmacist told me to take mag for something else altogether. among other things one benefit i noticed was this great new calmness. it's kind of life changing and because it's not just an ms thing, i have a few converts in my personal real life social networks. it's funny when i see this one girl she always lets me know she's got her mag on her right at that moment lol