Hello.
I am a 24 year old American girl, but I am living in Japan right now. I've known for a long time something was wrong with me. When I was 16 I had shingles and vertigo (that I still randomly get). A year or so later I had burning pain down my left arm quite often. I later developed horrible fatigue, headaches, left eye pain, numbness on right side if face, and burning pain down both legs.
I went to the hospital in Japan for the eye pain. CT scan showed optic neuritis.
Everything moves so fast here...the next day I saw a neurologist and he immediately ordered an MRI and lumbar puncture. He found 5 lesions on the MRI but the puncture only showed low WBC.
I've been hospitalized since then (1 week) while they ran so many tests I lost count. Non showed anything except when we did an enhanced MRI. It showed 2 lesions were old and 3 are new.
Now I'm on my 3rd day IV drip and they want me to stay in the hospital to take a 15 day course of oral steroids. Then I can go home for new years but they want me back to teach me and watch me start a DMT. They want to make sure I don't have bad side effects I guess...
They found nothing from my spine MRIs and puncture so I'm worried since they don't deal with MS much in Japan. Is it really okay to diagnose MS with just 5 brain lesions and Optic Neuritis?
Thank you and sorry it turned out so long. I will be spending Christmas in the hospital even though I had bought airplane tickets to go be with my family. It's quite depressing.
I am a 24 year old American girl, but I am living in Japan right now. I've known for a long time something was wrong with me. When I was 16 I had shingles and vertigo (that I still randomly get). A year or so later I had burning pain down my left arm quite often. I later developed horrible fatigue, headaches, left eye pain, numbness on right side if face, and burning pain down both legs.
I went to the hospital in Japan for the eye pain. CT scan showed optic neuritis.
Everything moves so fast here...the next day I saw a neurologist and he immediately ordered an MRI and lumbar puncture. He found 5 lesions on the MRI but the puncture only showed low WBC.
I've been hospitalized since then (1 week) while they ran so many tests I lost count. Non showed anything except when we did an enhanced MRI. It showed 2 lesions were old and 3 are new.
Now I'm on my 3rd day IV drip and they want me to stay in the hospital to take a 15 day course of oral steroids. Then I can go home for new years but they want me back to teach me and watch me start a DMT. They want to make sure I don't have bad side effects I guess...
They found nothing from my spine MRIs and puncture so I'm worried since they don't deal with MS much in Japan. Is it really okay to diagnose MS with just 5 brain lesions and Optic Neuritis?
Thank you and sorry it turned out so long. I will be spending Christmas in the hospital even though I had bought airplane tickets to go be with my family. It's quite depressing.
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