I'm brand new to all of this, & have been lurking here for weeks, just reading all the posts & learning. Hoping I can add some of my experience that might help someone else--I found people's stories to be helpful. So it's a little long, but here goes.
I was just diagnosed in July. In mid-June, I had this odd sensation that my phone was vibrating in my pocket, but when I reached for it, there was no phone. Over the next week, this sensation spread through my entire left side, and became constant and very painful--kind of like licking a 9 volt battery feels. I was having a flare up of pain from a herniated disk as well, but this sensation was new. I finally went to the urgent care on a Saturday & they gave me some pain pills & told me to rest. The pain pills helped the disk pain, but I was sure I had some kind of pinched nerve, because this was NERVE pain & it was NOT going away. Called a chiropractor Monday morning & got in right away. He told me my symptoms were alarming, sent me to an internest immediately. Had my first MRI that same day & another the next & they told me up front they saw evidence of demyelination & were thinking MS. The next week, I saw a neurolgist, did my first ride on the Solu-Medrol train, and had more tests.
A week later, it was official. I have MS. The healed lesions on the brain, as well as two active lesions on the spinal cord, indicating 2 or more incidents, and the clinical symptoms hit the protocol for diagnosis. But, wow! I was fine last month--how is this POSSIBLE? I've had pain issues & fatigue & depression in the past, but this? This is nuts!
I decided to start a DMD (Tecfidera) right away--I'm not totally sold on the idea, but I figured I won't get the time back if I wait & I want to to additional research before deciding my long term strategy. Now I'm just waiting to see if my current symptoms (parasthesia, foot drop & insomnia, lassitude) will go away. The steroids knocked out the disc pain, but didn't do squat for the nerve pain, just made me very, very angry.
I'm doing vitamins to fight the fatigue & gabapentin for the nerve pain in hopes of cashing in on the placebo effect, if nothing else. I have a ton to learn about this and, quite frankly, I'm hoping this will go back into remission, the drugs will keep it at bay, and I can ignore it or at least use my crazy awesome coping skills to cocompensate without much difficulty.
I didn't even know it was POSSIBLE to diagnose MS that quickly. Well, let's be honest, I didn't know anything about MS, except that I've done MS walks in the past to support the mom of a friend of a friend. Guest I'll learn quickly.
Thanks to everyone who posts here--you have no idea how helpful it was to read your experiences & see that this thing is not the end of the world.
Trevvian