Dysesthesias - a type of chronic pain that is not typically associated with a relapse. These are painful sensations that can affect the legs, feet, arms and hands and feel like burning, prickling, stabbing, ice cold or electrical sensations. They can interfere with daily activities, sleep and overall quality of life.
But symptoms affecting the hands can also include pain, muscle weakness, tremors, and problems with hand-eye coordination, says Linda Walls, an occupational therapist and consultant for the Can Do MS center in Avon, Colorado, for more than 25 years.
Numbness or tingling in your hands or feet can be a common symptom of MS. If you feel your feet or fingers tingling, try running cold water over them or use something cool to help stop the tingling. Mood changes. Talk to your doctor if you notice any emotional changes.
It can sometimes be mistaken for septic arthritis, osteomyelitis, and some kinds of inflammatory arthritis. Does MS cause joint inflammation? Multiple sclerosis causes joint pain in about half of the people with the condition. Joint pain might trigger muscle weakness, muscle spasms, and balance issues.
The best way to tell the difference between the two diseases is to judge your symptoms. RA will be most present in the joints, whereas MS can cause symptoms in many areas of the body.
Surveys for patient pain indicate that the most common pain syndromes experienced in MS are: continuous burning in extremities; headache; back pain; and painful tonic spasms.
Fatigue. Occurs in about 80% of people, can significantly interfere with the ability to function at home and work, and may be the most prominent symptom in a person who otherwise has minimal activity limitations.
Some of the most common early signs are: fatigue (a kind of exhaustion which is out of all proportion to the task undertaken) stumbling more than before. unusual feelings in the skin (such as pins and needles or numbness)
You might take a pain reliever like acetaminophen or use a skin gel with a pain reliever like lidocaine. Your doctor could prescribe medications for seizures or depression. They affect how your central nervous system reacts to pain. You can also try warm compresses or pressure gloves.
This fungal infection may cause the nails to become thick, separate from the nail bed, and appear discolored. According to one study, onychomycosis is slightly more common in people diagnosed with MS than it is in the general population.
Probably Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Upper-extremity weakness and sensations of numbness, tingling, and pain are all neurological symptoms of MS, too. One clue to telling the conditions apart is that if your pinkie is involved, you can likely rule out carpal tunnel syndrome.
MS can damage the nerves that affect your muscles. This can cause acute or paroxysmal pain in the form of spasms. Your arms and legs might shoot out uncontrollably and might have pain like cramping or pulling. Nerve pain can also be chronic in the form of painful or unusual sensations on your skin.
There are two main types of pain in multiple sclerosis:
Examples of nerve pain include painful sensations in the side of the face, called trigeminal neuralgia, and a tight feeling, often around the chest, called the MS hug. Pain in the limbs is very common.
What Does MS Feels Like? A lack of feeling or a pins-and-needles sensation can be the first sign of nerve damage from MS. It usually happens in your face, arms, or legs, and on one side of your body. It tends to go away on its own.
While there are no definitive blood tests for diagnosing MS, they can rule out other conditions that may mimic MS symptoms, including Lyme disease, collagen-vascular diseases, rare hereditary disorders, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Here's where MS (typically) starts
Optic neuritis, or inflammation of the optic nerve, is usually the most common, Shoemaker says. You may experience eye pain, blurred vision and headache. It often occurs on one side and can eventually lead to partial or total vision loss.
Experts usually describe pain caused by MS as musculoskeletal, paroxysmal or chronic neurogenic. Musculoskeletal pain can be due to muscular weakness, spasticity and imbalance. It is most often seen in the hips, legs and arms and particularly when muscles, tendons and ligaments remain immobile for some time.