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I am 25 years old and have been experiencing a lot of symptoms since the birth of my first child. It all started with vibration in my feet, it felt like a phone was going off under me and it was constant. Then the insect sting feelings began along with what I would call extreme twitching of my extremities. My vision started to blur every once in a while but I thought nothing of it. Then I got sick with sinusitis and it lasted 8 months! During the last 3 months of the sinunitis I lost all hearing in my ears. I went to a ear nose as throat specialist and they determined it was nerve damage and they wanted to did a balloon synoplasty, which I declined. Over time I eventually got most of my hearing back. A few months past when my symptoms seemed to subside. Then I started to experience really bad cramping on my legs and feet (especially my feet).the numbness and vibration travels up my calves but I could still walk. I had also been experiencing loss of balance, running into walls constantly. Then the double vision came along and I went to the eye doctor 3 months after that started and they said it could be due to using electronics to read, so I got glasses and thought okay one thing has been fixed.... oh o forgot to mention around the time the sinusitis began I had numerous bacterial infections and kidney infection UTIS, I eventually got to where I was barely peeing and in a lot of pain! I would take AZO pills on a regular basis. A few more months go by and then I get a bout of pneumonia using about 50% of my lungs. So I’d go to the doctor and every other month it would be back again even worse. After 4 pneumonia’s, I was outside one morning after church and I notice a gray fuzzy blob in my right eye I tried to was my face to get it out with no such luck. So I give it a few days... we’ll 2 weeks and it was just getting worse and worse so I call the eye doctor and they have me come in right away. They ran every test available Bd found that I had optic neuritis. The doctor told me to go straight to the hospital but I couldn’t for 3 days (family issues arises) so I go the following Monday I get in to see a neurologist. And he runs every test spinal tap negative, mri of brain only negative except for the lesionbon the optic nerve. He asks if I have other symptoms and I didn’t think that my issues were related so I said no , ( by this time I was so slow to speak an had no memory AT ALL) so he schedules me to see an optic neurologist which I’ve been waiting to see for 5 months ( I go next month on Nov. 22) since then I’ve had 5 more bouta of pneumonia all acccompanied by a uti. Throughout this ordeal I’ve had huge memory loss and feel so dumbed down! I am in pain everyday and it’s just escalating. They are so many more weird symptoms like feeling of water dripping on me, patches of numbness and pins and needles. I feel so awkward when I walk. Oh and I also have fibromyalgia. I just don’t know what to do, I know something is severally off with me I’ve never been a sick person! Please I need someone to talk to and to tell me what you think. I feel crazy but you know when something is wrong with your own body!

Welcome to TIMS. Sorry to hear you are not feeling well.

Your body is talking to you - you need to listen to it!

What kind of diet are you following? Do you take nutritional supplements? Do you exercise? Have you had recent blood work done?

Yes I take a multi vitamin, a b-complex, a cinnamon vitamin, something for metabolism and a digestive vitamin. I also take lyrica, flexaril and suboxone for pain (for fibromyalgia) and I’m on a organic diet and white meats.

Sry I was distracted for a minute. But yes I had blood work about 4 months back and everything came back normal. I am waiting for an appointment with an optic neurologist and I figure he will want to do a cervical spine MRI, I hope. The last neurologist I saw said I should be at a university Dr. that he doesn’t do cases like mine. I was surprised! I mean what do you do! He was very rushed and had way too many patients for his own good. So I have been so anxious to know! One because I know something is wrong and two so my family and husband can understand how I feel. I try not to complain and tell them what’s going on because the symptoms sound so weird to someone who hasn’t experienced them! I also lost my hearing a couple years back and now my eye sight in one eye, I’m afraid if I don’t get some answers and treatment soon ... what will I lose next!?

"...a organic diet and white meats"

There are a lot of misconceptions about food/nutrition. You have touched on just two of them.

Organic foods are typically not any healthier than their conventional counterparts and organic foods are not pesticide free.

Meat is not bad for you if it is grass fed. Grass fed meats are actually very good for you and are loaded with nutrition and EFAs (Essential Fatty Acids) that you cannot typically get from grain fed meats or typical supermarket poultry (I assume that is what you mean by white meats).

Are you following a gluten free diet?

"Grass fed meats are actually very good for you"

Actually,meat is not, since, it has been shown when one consumes meat, interleukin-6 rises, Il6 rises, and it is a marker of inflammation, and an analogy might be, a neighbor came over to see your mom, when the neighbor leaves your mothers' inflammation index goes up 70%, so, do you chase the neighbor down and give him a piece of your mind ? He brought her a burger.

"Interleukin-6 (IL-6) - a protein that is a measure of inflammation"

"70 percent increase), of IL-6 four hours after the plain burger"

And meat has been recently shown to be the only marker which accounts for inflammation, in the meat eater, versus the vegetarian. They found the meat causes an increase in red blood cells, but not in the vegetarians. The number of red blood cells as the marker for when inflammation happens, higher than the vegetarians, who don't have the higher red blood cells.

“Protein intake from only haem animal origin was associated with increased haemoglobin and haematocrit levels whereas protein intakes from non-haem animals and plants were not associated”

"low-grade chronic inflammation"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905638/

"The decrease in running ability with increased hemoglobin above 14 g/dl is surprising"

TomHennessy, there are a lot of misconceptions about food/nutrition. You have touched on many of them. Grass fed meats are NOT like regular meats nutritionally and ARE INDEED healthy, and not just healthy, extremely healthy!

Hi,

I'm not convinced your blood tests are looking for the right things.

Make sure you are tested for chlamydia Pn, and mycoplasmas. Also get an opinion on whether you have an infection in your tonsils. I had a similar problem for years and years. They called it everything from flu to asthma. In fact, I had a deviated septum (the gristle that separates your nostrils).

The result was I couldn't breathe through my nose so I was a mouth breather. The unfiltered air inflamed my tonsils and set up an ideal climate for infection. The blocked nose meant my sinuses never cleared so I ended up with sinusitis, rhinitis, tonsilitis and laryngitis .

The simple test is whether you start coughing when you try to talk? The first thing you do is suck some air in before you talk and that can trigger it. If that is a possible cause then no amount of antibiotics will fix it.

As you age your tonsils no longer sit exposed as they are when you are a child. They become embedded in folds of tissue and need some complex surgery to remove them. It's far easier to remove them from a child than an adult.

The tissue around the tonsils is where the EBV virus tends to reside. It is a highly suspicious element in the hunt for a cause of MS but remains an unproven link.

Regards,

ElliotB wrote:TomHennessy, there are a lot of misconceptions about food/nutrition. You have touched on many of them. Grass fed meats are NOT like regular meats nutritionally and ARE INDEED healthy, and not just healthy, extremely healthy!

In theory, on paper, but the bursting of red blood cells and the release of the iron found in them cause massive oxidation in the carcass, leaving, veritably any 'goodness' inherent in living flesh, useless.
The only good thing I've heard them say about meat is iron, and iron it seems people with MS should be avoiding like the plague, as in iron chelation in MS and/or bloodletting, iron reduction therapy.
So a highly absorbable form of iron might not be advisable as one might believe.
Meat causes inflammation, chronic inflammation, the low grade chronic inflammation, the origin of which researchers have been trying to discover for many years.

“Protein intake from only haem animal origin was associated with increased haemoglobin and haematocrit levels whereas protein intakes from non-haem animals and plants were not associated”

"low-grade chronic inflammation"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905638/

What you clearly don't understand is that Grass Fed meats are NOT at all like regular [grain fed] meats when it comes to nutrition. They are LOADED with important nutrients and essential fatty acids NECESSARY for good health in human beings.

ElliotB wrote:What you clearly don't understand is that Grass Fed meats are NOT at all like regular [grain fed] meats when it comes to nutrition. They are LOADED with important nutrients and essential fatty acids NECESSARY for good health in human beings.

The 'NECESSARY' fatty acids are created by the human body from the fatty acids found in plants, the very way the animal gets their fatty acids.

As I have pointed out, meat causes inflammation, and if one considers inflammation good, that would be a good thing, but, everyone considers inflammation to be bad, so, meat is bad for you just as numerous studies evidence.

Coincidentally, Il6/interleukin-6, the inflammatory marker mentioned/increased 70%, is THE marker they believe to be involved in the blood brain disruption leading to the increased iron in the brain.

"IL6-induced BBB defect precipitates iron accumulation"

"Hopkins researchers have discovered a single molecule that is a cause of an autoimmune disease in the central nervous system, called transverse myelitis (TM), that is related to multiple sclerosis."

I’m not sure my doctors won’t give me my MRI films they will only send them to the next doctor I’m going to see in November. They said they have ran every test under the sun and they haven’t found anything . When I asked for my paper work in my chart there aren’t any blood test and hardly any notes. I’m pretty mad about it the doctor didn’t seem to car I had seen him 3 times and no more than 3 sentences were said each time. He was pretty quick to send me to a university doctor. The doctors here are pathetic!

Hi,

This is pretty standard unfortunately. Usually they have a list of very standard tests that are simply not relevant to you.

I think you will have to change doctors and start from scratch.

If you want to put control into your hands you could walk into a pathology collection point and ask the nurses at the counter if they know of a doctor who seems to do a lot of tests. They may tell you to take a walk but they might give you a name.

Regards,

hi k can you share you lab results pls. will show what if anything is missing from the list, and to what degree 'normal' may have been misinterpreted.

also, product details for all supplements and meds.

possibly of interest (2 pages of posts to check out):
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... ml#p189325

research - am thinking along these lines

https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en ... zinc&btnG=

much more to it, but that's what i have time for atm!

kids' study, but makes the point well
Zinc status in well nourished Bangladeshi children suffering from acute lower respiratory infection
http://medind.nic.in/ibv/t04/i5/ibvt04i5p478.pdf
"In this case control study, simultaneous estimation of serum and hair zinc was performed in 35 well nourished children, aged 6-60 months
suffering from ALRI and 38 normal matched controls. Serum zinc was low in children suffering from ALRI as compared to control (90 ± 51 µg/dL vs 176 ± 98 µg/dL, OR: 6, 95% CI: 1.83, 19.66; P <0.05) children. ... We conclude that Bangladeshi children suffering from pneumonia, have decreased levels of serum and hair zinc."

176 mean serum zinc in healthy controls! that is up there. normally i'd suggest ppl aim for 120. if memory serves however, i think i have seen higher
healthy serum zinc levels in kids. either way. might be an idea to consider adding a zinc supplement (say 50-100mg per day for a month, divided doses, always with food) and see how you go.