21 year old male worried about MS

[ASAP971]

Electric shock feeling running across chest from under arm to center of peck. Mostly on my right side but on both sides sometimes too. Also get this pain in the left lower rib cage. Happens most when I cough laugh or yell or do something that puts strain on my diaphragm. It get worse when I am dehydrated or hungover. I have posted on other threads and some people think it may have something to do with a vitamin deficiency

I have really bad anxiety and this is freaking me out. Past doctors have told me this is muscle inflation but for some reason I do not believe this. I have had these symptoms for around 2-3 years. They do not hurt I'm just sick of them now.

Thank you and please help me feel better! and let me know what you think it is and how I can help it

[ElliotB]

Have you seen a neurologist?

[ASAP971]

Not, I have no. I got chest x ray and also saw a muscle specialist which said these feelings were do to muscle inflation and just talk to to take an anti inflammatory which helps but they are still present.

[jimmylegs]

hi and welcome! sorry to hear you're freaked out. at the very very least we should be able to do something about that.

first, if you don't mind my asking, are the 20 questions ;)

1. how is your diet and lifestyle, if i may ask? i'm curious re your
1. typical activity level prior to development of symptoms
2. dietary preferences
3. whether you have tracked your diet to see if you meet minimum recommended daily amounts for essential macro and micronutrients
4. whether you have been on any long term prescriptions or over the counter meds
5. whether you have any other chronic reoccuring health idiosyncrasies that you would not necessarily ascribe to ms?
6. what are your typical types and frequency of colds or other infections, if any?

what a relief, only six ;) i ask all of this because there may be a few things you can do in the short term to address underlying health status, and which might address some of the symptoms you have been experiencing - including anxiety.

if you haven't already checked them out, you may find these topics interesting as well:
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/undiagnos ... 25787.html
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... 25774.html

i'll look forward to hearing back from you with some more info and then i'm sure we'll be able to identify some potentially positive steps.

[ASAP971]

1. My diet is pretty good I go to college so I tend to drink more often the normal haha 4 days a week of heavy drinking. But I do go to the gym about 4 times a week as well and I'm in good shape.
2. Ive always played sports but started getting these sympotoms in college when i played less sports then high school but i do go to the gym a lot and play basketball
3.some days I only it 1 or 2 meals because of my classes and am constantly hungry
4.I don't take any long term meds but Alive helps my sympotoms
5.I have bad seasonal allergies, I have enpingde nerves in both elbows, I have visual snow, and asthma, as well as possibly IBS from anxiety but it is self diagnosed also have a bad post nasal drip since a young age
6.I almost always have a cough due to allergies and I am also very pro to sinus infections I get about one a year.

Thank you for posting and please let me know what you think. Also I'm telling you this for the sake of your question but I do tend to drink a lot when i do go out like a said is 4 nights out of the week. To the point where I am very drunk and get a bad hangover the next day haha i know its too much.

[ElliotB]

.... I tend to drink more often
.... go to the gym about 4 times a week
.....some days I only it 1 or 2 meals because of my classes and am constantly hungry
.... It get worse when I am dehydrated or hungover

The first things you may need to do if you want to get better is stop drinking and start eating properly. Don't let yourself get dehydrated. Probably the only beverage you should be drinking is water. Being constantly hungry is a sign that you are not getting the proper nutrition your body needs from the current foods you are eating. You may also want to try a different form of exercise for a while other than the gym to see if that helps. Take care of your body and your body will take care of you. Right now your body is 'speaking' to you but you are not listening.

[ASAP971]

So these symptoms don't sound like MS right, thats my biggest concern

[ElliotB]

So you are asking people who have never met let alone examined you and do not have medical degrees to diagnose you?

MS symptoms are different for everyone.

Your best bet at this time is probably to see some doctors to find out exactly what is wrong with you. What you have is not normal so you have something. It could be something simple. It could be something complex. A qualified physician is the best person to help you if you really want to know for sure. Why do you think the doctor you saw previously misdiagnosed you?

[Youarethecure]

It could be anything man.

We can not answer that question. MS shows it self in countless and unmeasurable ways. It is different from person to person.

Go see a (good proper) doctor and have them test you for things that can cause your problems.

[jimmylegs]

wow i wrote you a huuuuuuge post and it's gone. lame.

symptom lists can sound like a huge variety of potential diagnoses. if we look at your responses i think we have some more likely go-to items that could be addressed to find out how those would affect your symptoms.

1a. can you provide any more detail on your pretty good diet?
1b. among the various risks involved, heavy alcohol depletes nutrients, including magnesium. lost magnesium would contribute to increased anxiety levels. you can see the unfortunate feedback loop developing there.. if you are self-medicating anxiety with alcohol, you would probably be smart to take a good long look at whether your diet is meeting the RDI for magnesium. until you can reduce your daily and weekly alcohol intake, you will probably need more than the basic recommended daily amount for Mg (which is 400mg).
1c. athletic exertion also places a demand on your body's available nutrients, so it won't be making up for the losses from alcohol-related nutrient depletion.

2. re timing, it will be useful to look at all the things that have changed since high school, that might be factoring in here.

3. try grazing throughout the day. when i coach all day snow sports, i tell kids to keep a snack in their pocket - either that or we go inside to warm up, hydrate and snack. with relatives it's the same thing - close family friend recently got a big parcel full of non perishable goodies to help her through long days at the office. brother gets symptoms from neglecting himself at work and i just sent him home from a visit with a bag full of homemade lunches and snacks for his long days at the office, plus an ACES+Z supplement for his immune system. could you carry some high quality trail mix or something similar with you each day, to help keep you topped up between meals?

4. can you clarify what exactly you are referring to by 'alive'?

5. sounds like there will be lots you can do for your immune system with nutrition.

6. again, with some attention to nutrition for your immune system you'll likely see improvement.

if you were to look up nutrients that are issues for athletes, heavy drinkers, and ms patients, you would probably see a lot of overlap. so while your symptoms might not sound exactly like ms, you would probably do well to make sure you are all topped up and taking the best possible care of yourself, so that you don't end up looking more and more like an ms patient over time

do check out these topics for more detailed info:
if you haven't already checked them out, you may find these topics interesting as well:
undiagnosed-f54/topic25787.html
general-discussion-f1/topic25774.html

hope that helps!

ps if you go to a doc, ask for a referral to a dietitian. docs aren't necessarily up to speed on the nutrition side of things. i have great docs that order the tests i need when i ask, but that doesn't mean i haven't had to do a loooooot of teaching nutrition to a wide variety of health professionals along the way best thing i have ever learned about nutrition from a health professional was from a pharmacist, and he was a real diamond in the rough. actually i went to a dietitian at the campus health centre early on, pretty much right after diagnosis, and she couldn't really answer my questions (although she did give me a sheet from a study looking at high dose d3 and hypercalcemia which i found valuable). that is not by way of saying a campus dietitian couldn't help you in a basic food guide kind of way - they deal with student health issues in particular, it's their wheelhouse

[aetex]

MS is not the easy answer. It is a diagnosis of exclusion and any health professional is going to tell you that the drinking and poor diet has to be taken care of before anything else. Wouldn't it be crazy if you went through a myriad of blood tests (I've had 16 vials taken in the last 6 months), a lumbar puncture, an MRI of brain and spine, EMG, optic testing and spent thousands of dollars thinking this is MS and all you really needed was a good meal and some rest?? And if it is MS, believe me- you will want to get your body healthy for the best opportunity to control this awful disease and its progression.

Take care of your body. Try clean living, good eating, quality sleep, and low impact exercise for a few weeks and see how you feel. It may make all the difference in the world.

[lyndacarol]

It get worse when I am dehydrated or hungover.
...
let me know what you think it is and how I can help it

You seemed to know already in your initial post "how to help it"

[ASAP971]

I understand that I need cut back on the drinking and get a better diet but all I really want to know is if anyone else has had these symptoms and do they sound like symptoms that go alone with MS. also wouldn't it be very rare for someone of my age (21) and my gender , male, you get MS this early?

[lyndacarol]

...all I really want to know is if anyone else has had these symptoms and do they sound like symptoms that go alone with MS. also wouldn't it be very rare for someone of my age (21) and my gender , male, you get MS this early?

We are not qualified (and certainly not over the Internet) to tell you what it is that you have. As ElliottB and others have said, MS is different for every person who has it.

Your symptoms are common to MANY conditions, including MS. In my opinion, it would not be rare for someone of your age (21) to have MS. Six pediatric MS clinics have been established across the United States. Children as young as two years of age have been diagnosed with MS.

You need to find and work with a physician you trust and respect. In general, there is a lengthy investigation ruling out more likely possible causes first before you and your doctor can get to the MS diagnosis.

[jimmylegs]

while we're exploring non-occam ideas, here's another angle to consider.

"Undiagnosing" multiple sclerosis: the challenge of misdiagnosis in MS. (2012)
Solomon AJ1, Klein EP, Bourdette D.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To describe the clinical characteristics of encounters with patients misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
METHODS: A cross-sectional Internet-based physician survey of MS specialists was performed.
RESULTS: The response rate for the survey was 50.4%. Of those who responded, the majority (95%) reported having evaluated 1 or more patients who had been diagnosed with MS, but who they strongly felt did not have MS, within the last year. The majority of respondents (>90%) also reported the use of disease-modifying therapy in a proportion of these patients. Most respondents (94%) found clinical encounters with these patients equally or more challenging than giving a new diagnosis of MS. Fourteen percent of respondents reported that they did not always inform such patients of their opinion that they did not have MS.
CONCLUSIONS: The misdiagnosis of MS is common and has significant consequences for patient care and health care system costs. Caring for a patient with a misdiagnosis of MS is challenging, and at times honest disclosure of a misdiagnosis represents an important ethical concern for neurologists. More data are needed on this patient population to improve diagnostic acumen and the care of these patients.

an article about the above study: Why hundreds of patients a year are misdiagnosed with MS
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index. ... _of_p.html