Health Anxiety Overload - MS

Mental health
1

Hello!

I’m Andreea, 28, and a couple of months ago I had a couple of migraines which prompted me to visit a neurologist to see if anything was wrong. She did a basic neurologic exam which was fine and suggested I get a brain MRI to make sure it’s not anything serious. Which I did. The MRI came back clean except for a few small white matter lesions… and that’s where hell began. I googled the lesions and very soon became convinced that I have MS.

At this point I should mention that I’ve had moderate health anxiety for a while, but now it’s all I can think about. Since I got my MRI results and before I went to my neurologist, I became hyper aware of my body sensations and freaked out about every slight tingle, tightness etc.

I went back to my neurologist a couple of days ago and she said the MRI is fine, that many people have these lesions. I was happy for a little while and then the anxiety creeped back in. I should have asked her more questions to soothe my anxiety - why she doesn’t think it’s MS, for example.

I’ve been having a dull throbing headache on the left side of my head ever since - and of course I googled that too and it turns out it might be occipital neuralgia, which can also be a symptom of MS (not as common but still).

Of course all this thinking has got me exhausted. I would sleep all the time not because I’m sleepy but because I want to stop thinking I have MS. Not sure what I’m really saying with this message, just wanted to share my bit. I really hope this all turns out to not be MS, just a psychosomatic episode.

2

MS would have shown up on the MRI. Many people have that white matter including myself. It’s no big deal. And I don’t have MS. Listen to your doctor because I believe that you may be overthinking this and creating symptoms just out of fear. you already have health anxiety which is why you were getting the tingling, etc so when I was your age, I also thought I had MS. I had sudden symptoms of tingling, visual disturbances, muscle twitching, a little bit of numbness, head pressure, floaters in my vision, weakness and several others. I was terrified. All my testing came back normal after visiting the neurologist. The only thing that this could be related to was stress and anxiety. I want you to know that I am now in my 50s and I never had MS. that’s why I want you to relax! It’s all from stress and anxiety! Even to this day some of those symptoms might come back when I am anxious about something. This is what anxiety can do! It doesn’t bother me anymore because I know I’m OK but please please don’t spend your life worrying about this. It’s not worth it and you are fine!
The problem is not the symptoms you’re having, the problem is unmanaged anxiety that causes the symptoms. My recommendation would be for you to get some counseling to help you manage thiis. it’s really worth it! Life is short. Enjoy it! The more you think about all of this the more you will have those symptoms.. Believe me! I’ve been there. Take care of yourself and have fun! you can private message me anytime if you like.

3

Thank you so much for your reply, it brings a lot of hope! Tomorrow I’m going to another neurologist to get a second opinion (to ease my anxiety more than anything else), and on Friday I have an appointment with a psychiatrist.

I’ve been doing psychotherapy for a couple of years and it has helped during the “maintenance” phase of my anxiety but now it’s more of a crisis and I feel like therapy just isn’t enough anymore.

Anyway, thank you again for your words of reassurance. I wish you the best!

4

Hello Andreea, I totally understand how you are feeling, although I haven’t been too the Dr yet, I also have had migraines recently, 34 years old and only started a few months back, followed by brain zap sensations within my head, odd and fearful feeling..

You have been checked over though, the mri scan can pic up the smallest of abnormalities. From birthmarks on the Brian (yes) this is a actual thing. From small lessons like you’res, they present no risk at all!!!

This could have been there since birth, or something that’s just happend as you’re body has aged, who knows. But please trust you’re Dr, you can be diagnosed with ms with a simple eye test, so if you where indeed suffering from ms, it would have definitely showed up on the mri scan.

And you’re Dr would have told you, regardless of you’re previous anxiety issues, they are very blunt when it comes too bad news.

You are 100% healthy, obviously suffer from anxiety but physically you are fit and well. Try and clear you’re mind medication is good for that. Make a safe space & realx.

Wish you well on you’re recovery from this awful anxiety. All the best S x

5

Thank you for your replies!

I’m back with an update.. sort of. Since I first wrote here, I went and got a second neurologist’s opinion and she said the same thing, that I don’t have MS and I have nothing to worry about. That was about a week ago and to be honest, part of the anxiety / terror that I felt before has subsided.

However, like I said, since I first read about MS, I slowly but surely started to be hyper-sensitive to my body sensations and experience symptoms I read about. First it was a temporary tingling in my toes or fingers, then a small twitch and for a few days now, I haven’t had a new symptom.

However, I have one persistent thing: I feel weak and twitchy in my left arm, left side of my neck and sometimes a bit in the back of the head too. I don’t actually twitch, I just feel like my muscles move to the rhythm of my heartbeat. I also feel like I can’t grip things properly. I do, just not with as much force as before. Can anxiety really do this?

When I move around I don’t feel it, I only notice it when I sit down or stand very still. I try to convince myself it’s anxiety / prolonged stress / somatization all the time, but there’s a lingering fear in my mind it can still be something neurological the doctors missed. I never experienced this before, it only started recently after the “MS scare”.

I’ve also noticed I pay a lot of attention to how I move and talk and coordinate my movement, because I guess at the back of my mind I still think I might be cognitively impaired because of something neurological.

I had one good day at the start of this week, when I was more active, felt that symptom less and I was more mentally present, and I guess I assumed I was already better and the symptom would be gone for good. But it’s not, so I keep worrying. I hope it all goes away soon.