HELP!! Is this really MS or WTH?

[shaypay20]

So I'm so fed up with this so called MS.. Here is my story..
In 2003 I had a weird itch in my left foot and went numb.. Went to the Dr. got an MRI.. Showed a mass and was told it was a tumor.. so went in and had "it" removed.. however the tumor wasn't so much as a tumor.. It was just inflammation. I was put on steroids and sent home. A few months later I felt the weird numbing feeling going into my right foot... so i went to another hospital and was tested for everything and was told they need a biopsy of the mass in my back... everything i was tested for including MS came back normal and fine..

Only thing I was positive for was the antibodies of the west Nile. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks finally wanting to get home they sent me to rehab to learn how to walk again and put me on steroids along with other pills.. From then I was having mri's every few months to see if any new spots show up.. Nothing has shown up except a spot in my t-9ish region where they cut into my spine and dr. said that it could be scar tissue... I’ve seen many other dr. and no one has ever said I had MS till the last Dr. who said I had a probable MS and put me Avonex.. In the past years I let my self go and wasn't active and lay around ALOT.

So my muscles atrophied and i'm on my way to building them back up. So I'm even wondering if this is MS.. Yes I have numbness still and probably always will.. I have issues with my bowels and bladder.. but could that be from the surgery that I shouldn’t ever of had? UGH SO FRUSTRATED... Any one with insites please share..

[FL_Jhawk]

It may be MS. Strange that they would have originally thought a tumor, so maybe it is presenting on an MRI in an unusualy manner. Did your latest neuro actually look at the MRI?

Best thing for you, though, is to get on a good MS diet and get into shape. That in itself may help quite a bit. When you see your neuro again, ask him why he thinks MS.

[Redwings]

Hi shaypay:
There is no easy answer to a complicated case. Yours is a complicated case. You're going to need a LOT more specific information to determine if what you have is MS. The little information you've given in your post doesn't sound like MS. The most glaring part of your story is that straightforward MS doesn't cause "masses" that make neurologists want biopsies -- certainly not twice.

The other thing that's odd is that you saw many other doctors and none of them ever mentioned MS until the last one. MS should have been part of the differential diagnosis of every neurological workup you've ever had. So it's questionable that only one doctor would instantly come up with "probable MS" when several others ruled it out. The obvious two questions that have to be answered are 1) what is this last doctor seeing that none of the others did, and 2) what error is this doctor making that none of the others fell for?

With the little information you've provided, MS just seems like an overly simplistic answer. There's too much information missing to be able to tell just what's going on.

That doesn't mean that you don't have MS. But it does mean that a single minority opinion should be validated by at least one other highly qualified doctor, preferably a (or another) neurologist with vast experience in diagnosing MS, its associated conditions, and its mimics. I'm thinking on the level of a world-class multidisciplinary clinic like the Mayo Clinic (there's a satellite clinic in Arizona), Johns Hopkins, the Cleveland Clinic and UCSF.

The other thing you can do is to go the the website of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and find out more about MS and how it's diagnosed (http://www.nationalmssociety.org/abo...-ms/index.aspx). Also, google the McDonald Diagnostic Criteria for MS 2010 revision. Then you can compare your history to the diagnostic criteria and decide for yourself whether what you have sounds like MS (to me it doesn't). Bear in mind that the symptoms of MS are the same general neurological symptoms of many other conditions, so you can't base a comparison on symptoms alone (hence the diagnostic criteria). I think that will give you a clearer idea of what your next step should be.

[shaypay20]

MORE INFO

The reason the one dr. decided i was a probable case was because a tiny spot showed up on an MRI because i felt a little bit of tingling in my right arm.. but the tingling went away and so did the spot. Every MRI I have ever had has only shown one big spot on my T9 area where the surgery was performed. UGH.. So FRUSTRATING..