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.
Tightness or stiffness of the muscles, called spasticity, is caused directly by MS. Spasticity, will alter walking and cause pulling on the joints. This can result in pain typically in the ankles, knees, hips and back.
If you have multiple sclerosis (MS), you know that pain and strange sensations in your legs can be yet another fun feature of the disease. In fact, one cross-sectional study found that 42% of people with MS identify pain as a symptom of this chronic condition—and leg pain was found to be the most common.
It is one of the more common symptoms of MS. Spasticity may be as mild as the feeling of tightness of muscles or may be so severe as to produce painful, uncontrollable spasms of extremities, usually of the legs. Spasticity may also produce feelings of pain or tightness in and around joints, and can cause low back pain.
“MS pain that commonly interferes with sleep is neuropathic pain — often described as burning, shooting, searing, or deeply aching. This pain can be relentless and is often worse at night.” Musculoskeletal pain can occur from a compensatory gait pattern (due to leg weakness or foot drop).
Abnormal sensations can be a common initial symptom of MS. This often takes the form of numbness or tingling in different parts of your body, such as the arms, legs or trunk, which typically spreads out over a few days.
Muscle stiffness or spasms. Severe weakness or paralysis, typically in the legs. Problems with bladder, bowel or sexual function. Cognitive problems, like forgetfulness or word finding difficulties.
Weakness and fatigue are common MS symptoms and can make your legs feel heavy and uncomfortable.
Treatment: Your doctor may recommend pain relievers and drugs to ease muscle spasms. They may prescribe muscle relaxers, such as baclofen, tizanidine, or diazepam, or recommend spinal infusion pumps of muscle relaxers or pain medication. Even Botox shots can help by temporarily paralyzing a muscle or nerve.
To be a true exacerbation, the attack must last at least 24 hours and be separated from the previous attack by at least 30 days. Most MS exacerbations last from a few days to several weeks or even months.
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.
This pain is described as constant, boring, burning or tingling intensely. It often occurs in the legs. Paraesthesia types include pins and needles, tingling, shivering, burning pains, feelings of pressure, and areas of skin with heightened sensitivity to touch.
Muscle spasms: They usually affect your leg muscles. They're an early symptom for almost half the people with MS. They also affect people with progressive MS. You might feel mild stiffness or strong, painful spasms.
People should consider the diagnosis of MS if they have one or more of these symptoms: vision loss in one or both eyes. acute paralysis in the legs or along one side of the body. acute numbness and tingling in a limb.
Back pain and leg pain in MS, along with muscle spasms and burning or tingling sensations, can mimic sciatica symptoms. But pain in MS is from lesions — damage or scarring — that cause inflammation in the central nervous system.
Tingling or burning in the arms and legs may be an early sign of nerve damage. These feelings often start in your toes and feet. You may have deep pain. This often happens in the feet and legs.
ms frequently causes fatigue, which can limit walking endurance. ms damage to nerve pathways may hamper coordination and/or cause weakness, poor balance, numbness, or spasticity (abnormal increase in muscle tone). Visual or cognitive problems can also interfere with walking.
Many symptoms of MS can come and go in a paroxysmal way including pain, spasms and difficulties with vision.
Although poor circulation isn't a primary symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic condition that involves the central nervous system (CNS), circulation issues can affect individuals with MS.
Characteristics of the MS gait pattern
You may walk more slowly, with shorter steps. You may lack in confidence when you walk – leading to hesitation and stumbling. You might feel unsteady when turning or walking. You might find placing your foot on the ground difficult.
Here's where MS (typically) starts
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. Spinal cord inflammation, or what's called partial transverse myelitis, is the second most common symptom Shoemaker typically sees.
Numbness of the face, body, or extremities (arms and legs) is often the first symptom experienced by those eventually diagnosed as having MS.
In MS your immune system attacks the myelin coating surrounding nerves. MRI scans can pick up these areas of damage, called lesions, in different parts of your central nervous system. MRI has shaped how we monitor and treat MS too. It's used to build a picture of how someone's MS is changing over time.
These include fibromyalgia and vitamin B12 deficiency, muscular dystrophy (MD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), migraine, hypo-thyroidism, hypertension, Beçhets, Arnold-Chiari deformity, and mitochondrial disorders, although your neurologist can usually rule them out quite easily.