Tingling, Numb and Frustrated With MS

I wrote about my wife falling a few days ago and I have been worried ever since that it would cause other issues. Well, it has. We left town this past week to go to Albuquerque, NM, and after the first night we were there, my wife woke up tingling and numb on her right side. From her right toes to the top of her head, her whole right side had decided to lose feeling. Luckily we were near our Chiropractor, Dr. Kevin Atchley, and he was able to get us in for an adjustment. By the time we went to his office, my wife was limping and having issues getting her right side to function properly. She couldn't stand for very long, and had no energy. Dr. Atchley adjusted her that afternoon and she immediately began to feel a wave of "feeling" come into her arm and hand. Within a few hours she started to have more and more feeling come back, but by the next morning she was still not back to normal. Dr. Atchley saw us again, and was able to adjust her more thoroughly and again she started to feel the waves of feeling coming back.

By that afternoon, the feeling in her arm and hands was almost all the way back and she wasn't limping anymore because her leg and foot was behaving better. We are now in Red River, NM, and she still has some faint tingling on her right side, and is still having energy issues, but she isn't limping and has walked quite a bit around town without issues. She has been resting everyday, and is regaining the feeling more and more everyday. One of the odd things with this particular attack has been the numb feeling on the side and top of her head. Her head literally hurt from the issues this time, and she was very frustrated with it the first few days. Now, the feeling is back and the pain is gone, but we were very lucky that the numbness was on the side of her head and didn't move to her face.

I had a feeling that she would have issues like this after the fall last week, and I know she is extremely frustrated that she has missed out on things while we are in the mountains. Anytime she has had a "shock" to her body, like a fall or a physically demanding incident, she has almost always had some kind of after "shock". Sometimes it is tingling or numbness, and sometimes it is fatigue or bladder issues. This time she went numb really fast. Normally it takes days, but this time she went to bed fine and woke up numb on her right side. I know it scared her how quickly it happened this time, and we will be watching over the next few weeks to see if she continues to get better. We were very lucky that it happened in a place and time where we could get in to see our Chiropractor and get adjusted. I truly feel that Chiropractic has stopped and reversed her MS attacks, and has made living with this disease a lot more manageable.

Tripping and Falling With MS

Today I had another scare with my wife. We were walking into Hobby Lobby after lunch and I was ahead of my wife and daughter. I stepped up on the curb and a few steps later I heard someone hit the concrete behind me. I turned around quickly and found my wife face first on the concrete sidewalk. She is not sure exactly what happened, but she fell and rolled hard on the ground. As soon as I turned around my daughter immediately helped her up and she was ready to move on and not cause a scene. She was embarrassed and hurting, and didn't want to stick around to see who saw her fall. I tried to make sure she was OK, but I knew that she probably wouldn't say much as she was trying to compose herself. She grabbed a basket when we walked in so she could use it as support and walked into the store.

She has a few bumps and bruises, but overall is doing well tonight. Her side and leg is hurting from falling on it, and her arm is a little scraped up, but I think it scared me as much as it hurt her. She said she was not sure if she missed the curb or her leg, or foot, or knee gave out, but the next thing she knew she was rolling on the concrete. This is not the first time this has happened, and it always seems to happen when we are walking somewhere in public. A few years ago this happened fairly often, but it hasn't been a problem for awhile. Today I think we were both taken by surprise at how quickly she fell.

The hard part about this isn't just the physical part, but the emotional part of the disease. Our daughter was pretty distressed after her mom fell today. She was attached to my wife at the hip at first, and my wife had to tell her to back off and give her some space. I know it is hard on our daughter to watch her mom struggle and especially hard when she sees her hurt. Today concerned me too. It stresses me when she falls or has issues like this because it usually doesn't stop for awhile. The fall she took today could cause her to have other physical issues since it jarred her body so hard. Sometimes the effect of a fall like this will last for days if not weeks. We will have to be careful the next few days and with a three week trip ahead, we may have to find a chiropractor to check her alignment after the fall.

MS Is A Pain In The Neck

I find myself wondering what new weird symptom can pop up with my wife's MS. We have been dealing with this crazy disease for years, and have seen a lot of different symptoms that may be associated with her MS, but there always seems to be some new symptom lurking around the corner. My wife has had the issues with the electrical shock shooting down her spine as I know many MS'ers have, but she has had a new problem lately. About a week ago she started having issues with the right side of her neck. Her gland was really swollen and her neck really hurt from the pressure the swollen gland caused. When she would turn her head many times she would feel a pinching in her neck and would have to try and keep her neck still.

Along with this problem has come another strange issue. Her whole right side has felt funny since the gland issue has started, and her right shoulder has had soreness and pain. Her right side feeling funny is nothing new, but the shoulder pain is a new issue that we don't remember happening before. Sometimes the pain shoots from her shoulder blade and sometimes the pain shoots from her collarbone. When it happens, she has to stop because it really takes her breath away and she has to really concentrate to begin to feel better. She has been having cramps in her shoulder blades forever, but the shooting pain and the collarbone are new. Not sure what all is causing this, but I know the massage therapist commented on how wrecked her shoulder area is and how hard it is to get her body to loosen up.

I wish that was everything that was going on, but she has had another past villain show up. Under her arm she has an area that is extremely sensitive, and reminds her of shingles. She has had shingles multiple times before and many times it is in the armpit area. This is extremely uncomfortable for her, and it seems to come and go. So, she is having the cramps and pains in her shoulder and collarbone, and then she can't move her arm much because of the sensitivity issue. What a life it has been lately. She is doing much better the last few days, and I think we are past the main issues this time around. We are about to go on a 4 week trip to areas of the US setting up displays, so maybe we can find some time to just relax and rest. I know it would do both of us a lot of good.

Light Headed With Multiple Sclerosis

My wife and I are currently on a work trip to gather groceries from churches for our Children's Home. The average temperature per day is around 100 degrees, and my wife has had periods of time where she feels light headed and dizzy. It doesn't always happen with the heat, but the heat does seem to make it worse. The last few days we have been in and out of the vehicle loading groceries in our trailer. When she gets out and gets overheated, her body begins to shut down and she becomes light headed. She also starts to feel dizzy and has to cool off quick or have issues with needing to vomit.

A few weeks ago she went through a day or two that she felt like she was getting vertigo again. It really frustrated her since she hasn't had vertigo issues in years. She spent those few days in bed resting and trying to keep food and water down. We are not sure where all of this is coming from, but know that stress is a huge factor in it. The feeling of being light headed has really bother her since it is really affecting her day to day activities. We know that stress and a lack of rest are not helping with this, so we are taking some extra time now to allow her some downtime and time to de-stress.

Dr. Pepper, Not What The Doctor Ordered For MS

I have posted before about how much my wife loves her Dr. Pepper. This has been an ongoing battle for her to break the addiction, but the other day she had a totally different issue. She has been watching her diet and controlling her fat intake, just like when she was on the Swank diet, but she still drinks a Dr. Pepper occasionally. She went to the coke machine a few days ago to get a drink for me and for her. She set her Dr. Pepper on the top of the coke machine and when she reached down to get my drink out of the machine, the can fell off the top and onto the side of her head. It really stung her and the area immediately bumped up and hurt. Within 30 minutes not only was it hurting but the whole side of her head was going numb. Within another 30 minutes or so, the side of her face was loosing feeling.

All of this over a Dr. Pepper! We both knew that she needed to do something or the numbness would continue to spread and cause more issues. She called a new massage therapist she is trying and went to see her that afternoon. After the massage, she had all her feeling back and was doing much better. It still amazes both of us that something as simple as a soda can falling on your head would start her body to reacting, but we have seen so many weird things through the years that we aren't surprised, just amazed. She has been more careful with the soda machine now, but it was just another reminder that something simple can create bigger issues if left untreated.

No MS Symptoms During Pregnancy

I've been thinking through all of the different situations I have seen with my wife's MS, and one of the strangest was during pregnancy. When my wife first became pregnant she thought she was depressed due to the emotional swings and the crying. After about a week of that, she decided to see if she was pregnant. I'll never forget her sharing with me that she was pregnant. I was excited and scared out of my mind all at the same time. After we found out, she noticed the depression went away along with her MS. She had normal pregnancy issues like weird food cravings and morning sickness, but she didn't have any MS problems.

I think it took a little while for me to notice it, but her fatigue was gone and she generally felt better. We were both amazed at how well she felt and how she didn't have any numbness, fatigue, tingling, eye problems or other common MS issues. This always intrigued me because it was the most normal 9 months of our marriage. I have spoken with many doctors and MS patients and many of them have seen the same thing. So, why does this happen? Some of the doctors have talked about the hormone shifts in the body and how they could be affecting the MS. I wonder now if this has something to do with the vascular issues in CCSVI. Could the changes in the body during pregnancy affect the veins and how well they function? I have no idea, but it sure poses an interesting set of questions. Maybe we'll learn more as the research keeps coming out at the multiple Universities in the US performing trials.

First Years With Multiple Sclerosis

The first MS attack my wife remembers was her left arm going numb from her shoulder to her finger tips. During that time, she was going to paralegal school and had recently moved to the Dallas area. She was 20 yrs old at the time. She went to see the doctors and they felt she had carpal tunnel syndrome. They gave her a wrist support and sent her home, diagnosing her with a pinched nerve. For weeks she was numb, then the feeling started to come back. Everyone felt as if this was an isolated incident and not a big deal. Almost a year later, at Thanksgiving, my wife started to have fuzziness in her left eye. This was after a busy day and it came on without warning. She noticed the problem as she tried to drive home and couldn't see well when she was passing cars. She went to bed that night not knowing what the issue was, then woke up the next day blind in that eye.

She immediately went to see the eye doctor and he gave my wife the diagnosis of MS. He explained that he had only seen this issue with patients that had Multiple Sclerosis. My wife's biological mom had been in contact with her adoptive father at the time so he knew that she could have MS. At that time, the doctors were still teaching that MS was not hereditary and my wife was one of the first cases of a mother/daughter with MS. Her eye doctor gave her steroids for the blindness and she was able to regain her sight after a few weeks. My wife was completely blind for a full week this first time before the sight began to come back. About the time that she had regained her sight completely back, her right eye went blind.

This happened the day after Christmas, and seemed to coincide with her menstrual cycle. This time my wife was hospitalized and put through testing for MS. She had an MRI done and a spinal tap. Neither one of these came back positive for MS. The MRI showed no lesions but her parents felt like it was definitely MS. Her father chose at this point to not continue any testing because as a pharmacist, he felt like it was futile. He felt like it was a waste because it wasn't like they could cure or really even help with the drugs that were available then. The doctors started her on steroids and her eyesight began to come back just like it had before.

About that same time my wife's mother attended a Yanni concert. During the concert he spoke about how his daughter was about to give birth, and about how she had MS. My wife's mother approached him after the concert and he took her aside and told her about Dr Roy L Swank. My in-laws called Dr. Swank's office and was lucky enough to get an appointment within a month due to a cancellation and her age. Because she was only 21 at the time, Dr. Swank wanted to see her as quickly as possible. My wife moved back home and went to see Dr. Swank. Dr. Swank confirmed the MS diagnosis and had her start the Swank MS diet. My wife moved back home and began the diet immediately.

For nine months my wife slept and kept a strict diet according to Dr. Swank's book. Right after the blindness issues, my wife had tingling in her legs and problems walking. She also started to have epileptic seizures in her left arm. She had the seizures for about a month, and the doctors had her take seizure medication. The seizures stopped after that month and she has not had any since. The leg issues continued off and on for the first six months after starting the diet. My wife's main memories of that first year of MS were sleeping all the time and being stuck at the house. She remembers how strict the diet was and how worried she was about breaking the diet. She has commented many times about how she was worried about eating a french fry, or potato chip, because it might make her blind. Even when I met her a few years later, she was still strict with her diet and wouldn't cheat due to fear that it would hurt her and cause an MS attack.

After the nine months of sleeping, my wife slowly began to go back to work and continue with her schooling. She continued to have mild MS issues, including fatigue, tingling in her legs/feet, tingling in her arms/hands and headaches. About two years after starting the diet, she went blind for her third time. This time the eye issues started right after rock climbing and hiking all day. About a year later, my wife and I met. I know there are many, many things I am leaving out about those first few years, but maybe this will give a big picture view of my wife's experience. I will try to get into more detail in later posts.