not really a "foot drop"....but what you felt wasn't unusual. it may be your muscles feeling a little week.
a foot drop to me is just that...my left foot seems to be on a different wave length than the rest of me. and it drags, or feels like dead weight and i stub my toe alot...over nothing.
i favor that foot to keep from tripping. it causes me to walk with a slight limp, almost like one leg is shorter than the other.
your legs loose momentum when you rest a while...have to build them back up again. this may become an ongoing exercise for you. don't be discouraged tho, it may motivate you to become stronger...:)

no this is the ms....you legs are weakened at times or are weakening...i deal with this daily and exercise (walk) alot to make them keep functioning as long as possible...good luck!

Thanks Guys....new freakin adventure everyday this MS stuff...at least its not boring! :o)

No not foot drop. lilMargie described foot drop well. That is when the toes don't pick up. When a person takes a step, normally the toes pick up first, the foot makes the step and lands on the heel then the toes return to ground. Foot drop is when the toes drop. The toes dragging causes stumbling & tripping. I had true foot drop for about 6 weeks, lilMargie has it all the time., and she does describe it well.

I got your message about this change in walking ease. Yep that sounds MS. But to me, I immediately thought of many MS thing it could be. I thought to return your message with possibilities I have thought of. For you to evaluate. But I'll do it here, instead. For your consideration/evaluation. I'm just writing possibilities.

1. MS is called the Muscle Weakening disease for a reason. Muscles do weaken. The nerves have to fire off more than once to get them to work. Where muscles will respond to a single command from a healthy nerve. That's where I think that heavy feeling comes from. Nerves having to send multiple signals for the muscles to respond.

2. The frontal lobe/cerebellum is where the cooridination of complex task are stored & walking is a very complex function: balance,coordination of multiple muscles, ect. So a lesion there would affect the ability to do complex tasks.

....FRONTAL LOBE - helps coordinate movement (balance and muscle coordination). Damage may result in ataxia which is a problem of muscle coordination. This can interfere with a person's ability to walk

....CEREBELLUM - Affects coordination and voluntary movement. Can cause tremors, nystagmus, ataxia and lack of coordination/balance.

http://www.friendswithms.com/brain_functions_and_map.htm

3. loss of proprioceptive sense. This was a big on for me, to figure out. The body has a sense of where all of it's limbs are. I had to stare at my feet to walk, couldn't figure out why I was doing this until I understood the proprioceptive sense. The body knows when the foot leaves the ground and returns to the ground. Without this automatic sense a person has to watch their feet to see when it happens. That might have been what you describe as having to think about walking? Before with the proprioceptive sense it just did it automatically.

From: *The Precise Neurological Exam*
by: Stephen Russell and Marc Triola
"To maintain balance you need two out of the following 3 inputs to the cortex:
1 - visual confirmation of position
2 - non-visual confirmation of position (ie; proprioceptive and vestibular input)
3 - a normally functioning cerebellum"


The Romberg Test is usually positive (you cannot hold standing position with eyes closed), when there is a lesion in the cerebellum or on its input or output nerves. Because the cerebellum is the control center that calculates and monitors your position in space (proprioception sense).

If the inputs from your hands and arms are intact, you only have to touch (you do not have to grab) a stationary object like a wall, table, or the bed to keep from falling; since this will provide valid position input to the cerebellum, you will not even wobble.

--also add visual confirmation can also work when this sense is off.