Anyone know anything about MS

[MrsSnrub]

I know this is entirely the wrong place to put a post like this, but I'd like to have a little information before I go see my doctor so I have something to go off. Alternately, feel free to tell me if I sound like a complete lunatic.

 

For the past few months, I've been feeling "not quite there". To clarify, this isn't a problem with my mood- I feel the same emotions as before, still get happy and sad and mad and all that stuff. It's more cognitive- almost as if I just can't quite think like I used to. It's mid-October and I have yet to really do anything for school (short of little mini assignments) because I simply can't focus enough to study and, when I do manage to, I find I just don't grasp things like I used to a few short months ago. I've also been having a much harder time waking up and find myself exhausted and mentally foggy all the time.

 

A colleague of mine recently mentioned they were experiencing similar symptoms and they were sent for MS testing.

 

Would it be completely ludicrous for me to go to my doctor and ask for this testing?

 

I understand that you're not licensed physicians yet and can't in good conscience give any sort of medical advice, but I'm just wondering if you've learned anything about MS and if testing would be warranted.

 

Thanks!

[leviathan]

The number of conditions that could be causing your problem are way too numerous to even list on here. It's definitely not an issue of do you have MS, and if not, you're completely fine and/or it's psychogenic. MS can present in some pretty bizarre ways but usually you'd have to have at least some distinct neurological finding to go off to be suspicious of it and order MRI testing.

 

At any rate, if you are concerned about your condition and/or it is impairing your daily fuction then you should get evaluated by a physician. There are many other things they would have to look for and certainly MS is something they might investigate if there are other things we don't know about your history.

 

Hope you feel better, whatever it is.

[rogerroger]

Your in 4th year undergrad right? Burnout? Happens to the best of us.

 

I would swing by your Family MD if you have concerns. But I gotta say, just based on the little you wrote I would think more supratentorial/psychogenic. I would suspect your family MD would consider some blood work to rule out any metabolic/endocrine explanation - another reason to see your doc.

 

But as we all know this forum is just about the worst place to seek personal med advice, even advice on MS... The differential for fatigue/decreased concentration is basicly everything and everything. Call your doc, no way around it.

[mattg]

MS would be extremely low, if even on it at all, on the list of things you'd think about for somebody who is "not quite their" / mentally foggy... kind of random

[photochem]

My sympathies MrsSnrub, I hope I can offer you a little reassurance with this seemingly random aside.

 

Before he came to be known as an author and scriptwriter Michael Chrichton completed an MD degree at Harvard. In his book Travels he describes a period during his medical training when he experienced Lhermitte's sign and other symptoms suggesting the onset of MS. Rather ironically he gives this anecdote in the chapter entitled "Quitting Medicine". Although his first-hand account is a bit dated given that he studied medicine in the late 1960s, I still think it's worth a read in your case because the symptoms he describes are very different to those you have listed.

[MrsSnrub]

Thanks, all! I basically realized as I was writing it out that I sounded like a lunatic...I don't know, this friend of mine just got me really anxious. A lot of "yep, I had that too..."

 

Doesn't help that on a scale of 1 to hypochondriac basket case, I'm about a 12.

 

Anyway, I'll swing by the campus health clinic and get some blood work done, haven't had a check up in a few years.

 

Thanks again for humouring me!

[AccountantGirl]

I'm approaching this from the patient side since I'm not in med school at this point. I have had that feeling (inability to concentrate, difficulty understanding things and very poor short term memory).

 

I have also had various neurological "episodes". Sunburned feeling on the back of my legs for two weeks which went away, tingling in the left side of my face and self-consciousness about speaking ( for 6 weeks, also went away), then loss of sense of taste, vertigo to the point of constant vomiting, loss of feeling/use of left hand. After all of this, an MRI, a treatment with IV solu medrol (treatment for acute MS relapse which relieved the loss of taste and vertigo almost immediately) I have been told that I will be monitored, to lower my stress level, that my clinical examination, symptoms and MRI are not typical of MS and to pretend none of this happened. (hard to do when my hand still barely works!!).

 

So what I am trying to say is that it is very unlikely with only a cognitive symptom that the dr would test you for MS, let alone diagnose you with MS. From my understanding you need to have at least 2 neurological episodes in different parts of the brain in order to be diagnosed (i have had more than two and the neurologist still won't say that it is MS). Also, you can have MS and not have any white-matter lesions and you can have white-matter lesions and not have MS, so an MRI is not a clear cut way to determine whether or not you have MS.

 

MS is one of those diseases that is not completely understood. Doctors try to rule everything else out in order to come to the conclusion that it is MS.

 

It is scary, I know, especially with so much uncertainty. I would definitely go to your family doctor and he can run some tests and hopefully give you some idea of what is going on!