Back in 2014 when I was dealing with SIBO and my feet started going numb we were a bit worried about MS and my doctor sent me off to a neurologist to see what was going on.   At that time it turned out I had neuropathy probably caused by the antibiotics.   In 2015 we found I had myelin antibodies from the autoimmune panel from Cyrex and so I had to go in for another neurological check and an MRI.  That MRI came back clean in the spring of 2015 and so I sort of figured I was out of the woods on this one.

Fast forward to last fall.  I started having frequent burning sensations in the front of my left leg and assumed it was due to the bad discs in my neck which were found in the MRI.  I went to a chiro and did my usual routine on the discs but the burning pain didn’t really go away and slowly got more frequent to where it was a daily occurrence.  My new naturopath looked at my MRI and thought I had not only bad discs but also a thickening of the ligament that runs along the spinal cord.  So, back to the neurologist for me with hopes that this was a structural issue that could be handled by surgery.

I had to do another nerve conduction study and EMG since the neurologist thought it was probably a worsening of the neuropathy that was causing the burn.   Those came back normal so another MRI as ordered.  Last Friday I had a full spinal MRI done and unfortunately it showed a lesion in the cervical spine, right where the compression is taking place.   So, I wasn’t crazy in that I thought the pain was originating in my neck but was wrong in that it wasn’t structural but instead a lesion on the cord.   The neurologist was also surprised by the findings, she was not expecting that since my symptoms are very isolated to this spot in my leg but she said this is most likely MS.

Next steps are to get yet another MRI, this time with contrast  and including the brain to see if there are other lesions that we didn’t detect. I’m a bit concerned about the contrast and ah hoping they can do the brain scan without needing it since I seem to get the most severe side effect from anything these days.   If no other spots show up then it could mean a spinal tap to see if there is active autoimmunity going on right now with the spine.   This was not exactly what I’d been wanting to hear.  I had hopes I could finish hunting season, get a neck surgery and be back as good as new next year.  Now I’m most likely  facing a fairly uncertain future dealing with MS,  I will know for sure in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I’m going back hard core onto AIP/Wahls Paleo Plus and hoping I can deal with this mostly with diet, exercise, low-dose naltrexone and CBD.  The diet shift isn’t too huge this time around, I just need to give up GF grains and Ghostfish ale.  Wahls Paleo Plus is a bit more lenient than strict AIP but I had been able to expand AIP to full Paleo and then even added in GF items so I’m hoping I don’t need to go all the way back to no nuts/seeds and no nightshades (not to mention no coffee) but we will see.    I’ve had to find a new primary care physician and found an ND at Bastyr who works with the MS clinic so I’ll be seeing him in Sept to talk about LDN and CBD along with diet. I’d really like to avoid the real MS drugs if possible given my recent history  with prescription medications causing way more harm than good.