Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Support Group
This community is a place where members can discuss current events and weigh in on what's going on in the world.
Hi all,
Went on vacation and statey at inlaws ranch. They have 2 flights of stairs and I had trouble going up and down the stairs.I couldnt bring my left foot up far enough to reach the next step and it would sometimes feel I as if were wainting to fall, legs were shaky. Just lotsa problems
Now my feet are completely numb. I even stuck both of my feet with pins feet with pins to check the geeling. Nothing was there. I can still walk fine. But even the ankle area is a slghtly I used to be able to find relief from abused muscles there from my hand help massage. This time I would use my manager and it offered no relief. Felt the motion and heat of it and that is all.
Is this the beginning of some sort of paralysis? Has beeen going on for 3 straight days with no let up. Please help figure this one out! Thank you friend!......Irish
Went on vacation and statey at inlaws ranch. They have 2 flights of stairs and I had trouble going up and down the stairs.I couldnt bring my left foot up far enough to reach the next step and it would sometimes feel I as if were wainting to fall, legs were shaky. Just lotsa problems
Now my feet are completely numb. I even stuck both of my feet with pins feet with pins to check the geeling. Nothing was there. I can still walk fine. But even the ankle area is a slghtly I used to be able to find relief from abused muscles there from my hand help massage. This time I would use my manager and it offered no relief. Felt the motion and heat of it and that is all.
Is this the beginning of some sort of paralysis? Has beeen going on for 3 straight days with no let up. Please help figure this one out! Thank you friend!......Irish
My numbness started as an ascending paralysis. Every few days it got higher till it reached my armpits. I can walk thanks to spasticity on one leg. If this continues after you are rested or increases I would go to neuro ,if wait is too long, go to er. Keep us posted.
Alma
Thank you so much for taking your time to answer me! I always like to say thanks for my friends replies. I feel really bad cuz I had posted about my messed up legs and wanted to say thanks to ail who had replied but I couldn't find my post anymore! I do all this on my phone and sometimes it will not show stuff like page numbers.
Anyway, I do appreciate you guys sharing and as always your advice is very valuable to me. Since I can't see who all said what due to typing on my phone I guess I will have to be a bit general. I will say that like most of you my numbness will come and go. Usually it would only last one day. Thats why I became more concerned this time. It is now going on 4 days with almost no feeling.
In A way I wish I could go to the ER. They always have a neuro on call there and it would be nice to talk to someone who would really know what I am going through. You see I have not been dxed with MS. I had the MRI done and they say I have several small foci that should be old small vessel ischemic damage. High cholesterol, high triglycerides, bad food, no exercise, and smoking, oh yeah and high blood pressure. Well I have never had really bad cholesterol, only 2 times was it high along with my tris and I promptly brought them both down by reducing fatty foods and pretty much giving up all dairy. Bad food goes on but really who can afford good food nowadays. No exercise, got me there! High blood pressure, yeah, under control.
That, my friends, leaves smoking. Yes I smoke. However, I was stress tested a year ago with ultrasound and was totally perfect. Had an angiogram done of my veins down my legs and up through kidneys and was told I had the veins of a 20 yo...I'm 46...I don't cough and lungs are in good shape. So smoking??? Hmmm....I just don't think so doc. This "doctor"actually told me that if I quit smoking all my other MS symptoms would just flat out go away. He says with all the chemicals in cigarettes that it is highly possible that they could do damage to a persons muscular and nervous systems. Told my mom this and her reply was, "tell your doctor as much as I would like you to quit smoking that even I know smoking does not cause that kinda damage."
Another person on this board told me she was also first dxed with ischemia...she knows who she is and she knows I want a message from her about that and how she was eventually dxed with MS, soooo lets see if she gets the little "nudge, nudge, wink, wink"here.......:-) lol!!!...
I would like to talk with you also crafter cuz we sound very much alike in our symptoms and our experiences. I, too, have a much harder time coming downstairs then going upstairs. My knees do go ali wobbly and I feel as though I am going to fall. Also my scan report said "no mass lesions"which according to my doc means "no lesions". Once again hmmm....does the word "mass"mean something different to them? To me it sounds like exactly as it says, "no mass lesions" in other words...no mass lesions...maybe they would understand better if it said, "some small lesions are present but there does not seem to be any really big ones".
I know I should call the MS specialist neuro since all they wanted from me was the MRIs. My description of the MS hugs I have suffered seemed to have caused him to believe that there was a distinct possibility of MS. usually they only take dxed people. I have to admit to being scared. Bad run in with a neuro several years ago and have kept the continual increasing symptoms, longer duration, and worse severity underwraps for over 5 years now. He basically called me a hypochondriac because I was not in an exacerbation at the time of seeing him. Passed all the tests back then. Just don't know what to do. Wise to see him or should I just wait it out til next bad issues? Smarter to go to Er and hope for a dx or will they just send me home with a referral to a neuro? Any others ideas are truly appreciated!!!!!........irish
Alma
I do know what you mean. I have quit enough times through the years and have felt much better in many ways. For me, surprisingly, my moods improved. I mean it was no miracle, I was still bipolar and had to take meds, but I did FEEL more. Smoking kinda numbs me to life and somehow, for me anyway, it was kinda nice not to feel the numbness any more.
Sometimes I will not take my "crazy"meds, just the moods one, for two days straight. During that two days I become completely "normal". The last part of the second day is a precious gift. I can smell things again, like the yummy special scent of my sons or the hint of Spring being carried in by the wind, heck the neighbors BBQ even! I "really" hear my sons words and "see"their expressions and the light in their eyes.
You see Alma, all of these things are so very precious to me. Most people take them for granted. They don't think about it at all. But not me. Not me or the other 5% of America that suffers from bipolar and are considered to be mostly stabilized on meds. Our "crazy"meds numb us so much we barely have feelings. So many of us quit taking meds for that reason. People think its because we are irresponsible or cuz its funner to self medicate...well, yeah, it IS funner to self medicate BUT most of us learn that despite the horrible side effects and the life killing numbness (not to mention how the LEGAL meds also can seriously maim if not completely destroy ones bipolar creativity) we have no real choice. If we want to keep our marriage, most importantly if we want to be a continous part of our cisterns lives and not lose complete custody of them, then we become "comfortably numb" just like the song by Pink Floyd (bipolar board agrees that this band is the band that truly represents "us".......HA!!!...lol...another song by them called "Us and Them".
Anyway to make this ridiculously long story get over with....for me smoking numbs out the part that the drugs don't. You see Alma, the thing about bipolars is that while we really really miss not feeling, at the same time if we are truly honest with ourselves then we know the truth, as sad as it may be, we really should not let ourselves really feel...not ever...and that means I should never pull my little "miss 2 days" stunt, we shouldn't really self medicate because its too hard to regulate like legal drugs, and for me, my aunt, many of my cousins and probably about more than 85% of the bipolar population we should NEVER quit smoking, Feeling is really really bad news for us. Feeling for someone who is bipolar means deep depression for for many of us, guys often show it through the kinda rage that makes page one of the papers, some of us become so high on the "feelings"that we do things to really destroy our lives. The lives we have been building for so long and with so much sacrifice and pain. These lives are torn to shreds through one night stands, wooing out the checking, savings, maxing cards and sometimes taking out outrageous loans we will never be able to pay. That is what "feeling"does for "us".
Sorry this is Waaayyy too long....got carried away...besides I know you have to understand somewhat because most smokers I know are some of the BEST people I know....you my friend have always been kind and good hearted to me, and for that I thank you with my very soul. Your true friend, Tamye
Being bipolar and having ms has to be very difficult to control or balance.
When my daughters nag about my smoking, I remind them, I lost sex, total independence, can't drink, ride a motorcycle, ride a horse, barely walk, or drive, so Yes I'll continue smoking for a while....LOL.
Love, Alma
Doesn't it make you feel really good inside to just defiantly tell our kids off??? I do the same with my boys when they try and tell me I am doing drugs (what the school teaches them about smoking). I just tell them that its still legal bubba!!!! I used to feel so guilty about smoking and being a mom (both sides of the family nagged me)...plus being Catholic doesn't help because we basically feel guilty about everything even when its not our fault!!....all those years as a little girl being coached by mama on what to confess and how she would throw in some strange sin I never even knew anything about, had 3 sisters though so my mom probably got all our sins mixed up!!! Oh I do love being Catholic!! No other religion I know of loves to madge fun of itself more (except the Jewish...they are super funny but lots older than the Catholics...time seems to loosen things up a bit)
Oh Alma!!!! There I go again!! Just talking and yammering away!! I'm surprised this board has not had a secret meeting and decided to kick me off or something!!! ;-D
About your daughter....you can't push her into taking her meds again but there are a few sneaky mom things you could do that might sway her. For one thing if she does not start controlling her anxiety and panic she could be heading right down the road to MS. She is a first degree relative of someone who has it..you. Plus stats show that I its passed down more often through mom and daughter than any other way. When I was told I had EBV and that I would be collecting autoimmune disorders due to it, the docs told me QUITE seriously that I needed to learn how to control my stress and anxiety as this contribute greatly to getting autoimmune disorders...stress lowers renaissance of immune system and makes it possible for sgml kinds of illnesses not to mention those wbc starting little civil wars with each other. So the way I see that going down is to maybe be talking to a family member on the phone about it or your neighbor or anyone really AS LONG as your DAUGHTER is somewhere in the vicinity listening in, which, lets face it...shes a female she can't help but listen in!!! Then you could mention me and my experiences with anxiety and panic. I figure I have had anxiety all my life but panic came along in late teens. I began to have panic attacks when I would do scary things, like drive on the freeway in a big city. well I ignored them. Then I began having panic attacks during the middle of the night from bad dreams I guess. Know what happened? I am officially screwed for life because I refused treatment for so long.
According to my pdoc (short for psychiatrist, might as well learn a little lingo) my signals are all messed up now and I can have anxiety issues and panic attacks for absolutely NO reason. In other words I can be watching my favorite movie with my husband after the kids are in bed and actually sleeping and WHAM!!! Just like that I can have a panic attack (this did happen to me). She would die of embarrass memt if this starred happening to her. Does she like to go out? Go dancing or meet with friends at restaurants or movies? How will she feel if she starts having a panic attack in front of them? I can tell you this much her friends will either haul her to the ER or send for an ambulance to do it. Now even if she has good insurance she will be paying something for the ER visit and/or the ambulance.
These are things she seriously needs to consider. At this point they could just put her on some low dose maintenance meds. She does not want to end up like me. I now have severe high blood pressure, which is controlled but can and is set off by pain and stress. Stress being the identical twin sister of anxiety. I have been told that stress/anxiety is what brought on my blood pressure problem. Now my life could be cut short because I did not get treatment soon enough. PLUS I also have IBS which is a yucky autoimmune issue where I alternate between diarrhea and constipation. This is a MAJOR stress/anxiety illness. Your daughter would HATE this cuz there is definitely nothing girly about it. It stinks...literally!!!..lol!!!...sorry had to say it.
Anyway since you don't want to be seen as a nagging mom and she is most comfy with you as a listening mom, I would try the talking to someone else in her vicinity trick. Plus maybe clue the person in on it so they will not try to change the talk and they could even ask some good questions. Anxiety issues as well as panic are also hereditary, so yall could always talk about how weird it is that our dna has so much to do with our emotions and then our emotions have so much to do with the illnesses we endup with and how many of our illnesses are dna related including MS. I don't know, something like that? Anyway this strategy has worked several times for me with my two boys...which just goes to show how they like to eavesdrop as much as girls do, no matter how much they deny it!!!
Ok I'm outta here...my Swisher Sweet is calling me. Yes strange choice for a middle age stay at home mom and wife but hey I went to medical assistant skool last year, made a lot of new friends and learned to appreciate some of the finer things in life. One being Swisher Sweets little cigars (just like a cigarette with 20 in the box and filters) and the second thing I learned to love was the pure joy of hip hop music!!! Ahhhhh Alma you should listen sometimes....it makes you feel so happy you just want to dance and sing and forget all your troubles!!! I'm thinking of you and your daughter and you are both in my prayers!! Love, Tamye