I am a bit of a worrier, I know, and have a history of jumping on a perceived body change and taking it to the doctors, including Dr Google.
Particularly now I’m 52 and many things don’t work as well as they used to - how do you know what’s just “grey hairs” and what’s not.
But I’ve had some symptoms for 4 years now that have a consistent pattern and have recently got worse.
I have pretty much convinced myself I have MS in hearing other peoples stories of first symptoms but I would of course love to be told otherwise.
I’ve just bounced back off a GP visit with no progress in diagnosis or managing symptoms and I’m left feeling that I’m just another cyberchondriac
I feel I cannot sit in limbo doing nothing.
I have always felt that if something is making you unhappy you need to take control and do something.
So I’m here.
My story below.
Many thanks to anyone who can take the time to read it and can offer advice.
Regards,
Banana65
====================================================
2014 April:
Noticed a lot of eye floaters and in particular a dot in my right eye that seemed more fixed.
Was getting a consistent dull headache front/right.
Saw an Ophthalmologist - who reckoned it was just a floater.
I decided my headaches could be due to a wisdom tooth I had or needing a change in glasses prescription.
Or possibly I had sustained some injury during one of my many falls on an earlier snowboarding holiday in February.
Possibly stress related - My wife had had cancer since 2012 and during this time I had a lot of teenager troubles with my son. Trips to the school and worries about exam performance etc. Dropping out and repeating a whole year of school etc
2014 August
Still had the headache front right, and also now very slight feeling of tiredness in my left arm and a numb/tingling feeling in the smaller toes on my left foot.
Very “uncomfortable feeling neck” - like I need oiling. Lots of crunching sounds when I move my neck.
Some weird shooting pains on one side of gums. Dentist could not explain this one.
Problems consuming information at work - felt very easily overwhelmed.
A feeling like pressure on my windpipe like someone is pushing on it.
I decided to ramp investigations up.
2014 November
Saw a neurologist at the Hospital.
He basically said my headache was difficult to quantify - sounded muscular but one sided location and floaters suggest migrainous.
He suggested various things to try:
ENT check - nothing found
CT, MRI, - nothing found
Naproxen then amitriptyline - took them for a bit didn’t seem to make a difference.
Physiotherapy - spent some time here doing neck excercises I did not feel they helped.
I did feel when he applied some pressure on C2 that my headache got better.
He referred me to a neck specialist who said “my presentation” of right sided headache and left-sided aches and tingling was unusual.
He organised a CT scan of neck and on the results said there was nothing unusual - some age related deterioration.
He dismissed me and suggested I might like to go back to neurology.
2015-2017
I gave up. My wife had ovarian cancer. I threw everything into her situation and ignored my symptoms which persisted but did not get worse.
In November 2017 I lived with my daughter in the hospice while my wife got worse and eventually died. During this time I start to get dizzy spells.
The dizzy spells persisted afterwards.
2018
I saw a GP in January about the dizzy spells. He said it was probably just a virus - come back in 6 weeks.
I left it until May. By this time I had noticed that the dizziness had a pattern - when I roll over to the right in bed or when I look up and slightly to the left.
But what really made me go to the GP was that in the last month I was much more aware of my headache and my left-sided symptoms had got worse.
The tingling feelings encompass my lower leg and foot.
My left arm feels tired and my left shoulder and neck aches with a tingling in my left small finger.
Furthermore I now have a tingling in my right small toe and finger.
I used to be mostly bothered about these symptoms at night. But now I’m very aware all during the day.
I do notice that these symptoms get a worse if I’m stressed.
And I am stressed I know it. I’ve been bringing up my 11 year old daughter alone since my wife died. Just getting everything done including a full days works is hard work.
I’ve had to work from home and my BT broadband has been failing constantly and they can’t fix it after 4 engineer visits.
I took a new car for a demo drive and someone drove into the back of me - I was stressed for days and my right-sided headache was bad for days.
We were burgled and had bikes stolen.
There are sudden flashes of loss of concentration when I’m stressed.
I took all this to the GP a few weeks ago.
He said I probably did not have MS because such things normally start earlier in life and that he would expect the symptoms to be more serious like not being able to move my arm in certain ways.
He said he was not dismissing my symptoms but that there probably was not much to be gained from being referred to neurology at this point but that I should come back if things get worse.
I think he pretty much convinced me, with great help from myself, that everything I experience is probably stress related.
The “nothing to sinister worry about” feeling you leave the GP with does not persist for long