Pleurisy or "MS hug"?

[mlc]

I was diagnosed with pleurisy around 1985 or '86. (A crazy story! - I was in an opera workshop playing La Boheme's Mimi in her death scene, and I felt sicker than she was!)

I got my dx of MS in 1988... and it just dawned on me, after all these years: maybe I didn't have pleurisy at all. Maybe it was the "MS hug."

Has anyone here ever had pleurisy? Have you also had the MS hug? Can you describe any difference?

[gomer]

Yep had them BOTH, lucky not at the same time (or forgot?)
Neither are fun......

pleurisy: is an inflammation or whatever of the a chest lining, simple (painful) torso movements will aggravate it. pleurisy is usually easy to Dx, the doc can HEAR it with a stethoscope as you breathe or rotate etc.

IN my case, I was just getting over a sore throat when my painful pleurisy hit. A week or two later I was hospitalized and Dx'd with diabetes.

MS Hug: For me, its all in the muscles around my ribcage. Same area but no where near the same pain/discomfort/feeling. I don't suffer the hug a lot but its sure not fun either. I am also glad my tend to be short lived, instead of all day or all night episodes. I am also lucky in that it will usually start on one side, then shift sides once or twice before going to sleep.....lol

IMO I doubt the doc confused pleurisy for a MS hug.

Gomer

[mlc]

Thanks, Gomer -

I wondered because another doctor years later insisted that if I had ever had pleurisy, she would be able to tell even now, and she didn't believe I'd had it... but then again, she also didn't believe I had osteoarthritis in my toes (the result of an old dance injury), and later apologized for doubting me, and admitted she had looked at the xrays wrong.

Pleurisy felt like I'd been kicked by a horse - I thought I must have broken my rib from coughing. OK, so maybe I'll be lucky and will never have the hug!

I'm sorry you're stuck with diabetes + MS --- there's lots of type II diabetes in my family, but I've been spared that, at least.

[Hawkgirl]

I always respond to posts about MS hug, because that is the symptom that has been the worst for me. My MS hug has been going on for 2 years now. Non-stop. 24/7. Over this time it's sometimes a burning sensation in a ring under my breasts, sometimes it radiates from a specific place on my spine, sometimes it feels like I'm wearing a belt made of iron, that squeezes tighter and tighter. When I'm stressed it spreads up and down, from my armpits to my hips, like a corset of iron. It can make it difficult for me to breathe. I have not responded to any painkillers except Lyrica. Muscle relaxers sometimes help, but they also knock me out.

I have only read about pleurisy in Regency romance novels; I thought it was something like consumption. Or dropsy: that's another one I've only read about in historical novels.

[gomer]

Dropsy is not as well know a term these days, plus it sounds more mysterious and interesting than "edema"!

Gomer