Multiple Sclerosis - or not Multiple Sclerosis. THAT is the question.?
I was diagnosed with MS back in 2001. At that time I was having bowel and bladder symptoms after three consecutive summers of "relapses." I was diagnosed with MS and placed on medications. The medications had SE that interfered with my job - and actually the diagnosis itself became a HUGE issue for my superiors. I didn’t have any plaques on my MRI at that time, but the doctor said the symptoms were consistent. He also stated there were people with plaques who have no symptoms, so conversely there must be people with symptoms and no plaques.
I have had a "shadow/artifact" in my frontal lobe for a decade. I feel that I do indeed have MS. I am getting ready to go to a neurologist and I am worried. What else could this be if not MS?
I have numerous symptoms. Gait irregularities. Cognitive deficits. Word finding difficulties. Migraine Headaches. Numbness and Tingling. Pain - lot of neuralgic pain in the lower extremities. Very poor memory. Muscle spasms/stiffness.
Any help or support would be appreciated. Thank you.
The plaques usually don’t show up around the same time the symptoms do. On the neurology station where I work they always do a lumbar punction to support diagnosis, as the cell count change is more evident here than the plaques. There aren’t any other neurological diseases that would cause an artifact in the brain and the symptoms you are describing. The symptoms would be consistent with other neurological diseases but then you wouldn’t also have an artifact, and a tumor causing an artifact wouldn’t present these symptoms. If you feel like it could be something else then speak to your neurologist about your lab results that make him think it’s MS. As to the previous answers, Lupus is usually diagnosed by a dermatologist first because skin symptoms show up before the neurological ones (I also have experience with Lupus patients). ALS wouldn’t show artifacts, IBS wouldn’t cause spasms in the lower extremities (this is typical for MS), Chronic fatigue Syndrom also wouldn’t cause this.
