Hello All...
OK, so as my title suggests, I wanted to bore you with the tale of how I was ultimately diagnosed with MS.
It was 2006ish (possibly 2007... you'll find out as I continue ranting that I was quite bad at keeping track of things until recently) and I was in my junior year of college. I remember the day it happened vividly. I was sitting at my computer, writing a paper and chatting with some friends over instant messenger. As I typed away, I noticed that my fingers were a little tingly... and as I started paying more attention, realized that the entire left half of my body was slightly numb.
As any normal twenty-something male would do, I began randomly poking myself to figure out exactly where the numbness started and stopped (and how hard I could jab myself until I could feel it.) After a few minutes of palpating, I casually mentioned to a good buddy of mine that I was noticing this problem. Naturally, he yelled at me for just sitting there and not calling my doctor ASAP.
To think of it, I guess that would be the reaction of any normal, sane human being.
I decided to suppress my usual "wait and see" attitude, and left a message for my neurologist, Dr. Feldman of SI, NY (I should mention that I had been seeing Dr. Feldman for about 5 years as I have migraine headaches, and was on a prophylactic medication for them.) After leaving a message, I decided the best thing to do was just relax and wait to see what the doctor would say. I figured since I had no trouble walking, grasping, breathing, typing, seeing, etc., that there couldn't be that much to worry about.
About an hour later, I got a frantic phone call from a physician at my neurologists office, telling me to immediately stop all medications and get my butt to their office. To make a long story short (TOO LATE - if any gets the reference from Clue,) after a battery of tests, I was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis.
Transverse Myelitis, or as I call it "MS Lite/Diet MS" (half the calories, all the problems,) is an inflammation of the spinal cord. It is somewhat similar to Multiple Sclerosis, and the way it was explained to me, my diagnosis was based on lesions being found on my spinal cord, but not in my brain. I began interferon treatments, and started researching as much as I could. 6 months later, I took another battery of tests where lesions were discovered in my brain, and my diagnosis officially changed to MS.
The kicker to all of this is I had been showing other signs for months, but I had written them all off to stress. I had been playing the violin in my college band/orchestra, and suddenly began having trouble with the fingers on my left hand. I would shoulder my instrument, I had reduced strength and dexterity in my fingers. I figured I was under under a great deal of stress, and decided to take some time to rest and relax. It was only a few months later that I had the full blown attack, and went numb.
The moral of this story is simple. DO NOT IGNORE SYMPTOMS!!! If you notice something wrong, get it checked out. I know that if I had gone, it wouldn't have changed the ultimate diagnosis; but I may have gotten treatment earlier, and avoided/pushed off my first big MS attack.
Thanks for reading,
Adam
P.S. The worst part of this whole ordeal was not knowing what I had. It took a surprisingly long time to be diagnosed, although I was provided with a number of options as to what it could be. The range of viruses, diseases, injuries, etc. that I was given ranged from quite simple, to being on borrowed time. That was definitely not a pleasant time. Well, tune in next time.. same bat time, same bat channel!
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