Hello Everyone, These are a few of my "possible" diagnosis. I'll start at the beginning....2 1/2 years ago, I fell off a ladder and ended up having a 2 level cervical spine fusion in Feb. '08 and a 3 level lumbar spine fusion w/ laminectomy in Oct. '08. Within a few weeks of the 2nd surgery I started having bowel incontinence. NOT FUN!! I am 48 years old. This should not be happening to me! I tried to ignore it (a bit hard to do). I didn't tell anyone, even my husband didn't know. Over the next 8 months I became very good at hiding it. It would also disappear for a week at a time then come back. I was also having other symptoms - pain, burning sensation and tingeling in my arms and sometimes my legs. Severe shoulder pain, vertigo, stiffness in my arms, a heavyness in my arms, electric shock pain down my spine and down my left groin into my thigh, eye ticks and pain, memory loss. Finally, I couldn't ignore it any more so I told my spine doc about it. He was very alarmed and ordered MRI's of my spine. They were neg. He then sent me to a gastro doc. I liked her at first site. She was very sympathetic and ordered an MRI of my pelvis and a colonoscopy. Both were neg. So she then ordered some tests on my rectum (yuck!!). I passed most of them but failed one that had to do with the nerves. The gastro doc sent me to a neurologist who I was very lucky to be sent to because I also liked her right away and she listened to me. Thank goodness that none of my docs ever discounted what I am feeling or what is happening to my body. By the time I saw the neuro, my bladder was now being affected. I could no longer feel when I urinated and I had a couple of "accidents". At this point MS was the temporary dx. I had 2 more MRI's (one of my brain and one of my cervical spine) and a whole slew of blood tests. The brain one was neg but the spine one showed a place that was atrophied. (all blood tests were normal) I was not happy with an MS dx but at least I had a name for it and felt that maybe I could get some meds to help things improve. Well I went to the neuro today and she said it was not MS but she still didn't know what it was. I forgot to mention that at the first neuro appt, she discovered I could not feel a pin (tack like thing they use to determine if you have feeling in parts of your body) from 3 inches below my chin to my knees. So that meant some kind of neuropathy. So now she suspects part of my problems are from the spine atrophy. But the incontinence can't be coming from that as it is in the wrong part of the spine to cause that. The MRI's of the lumbar are not showing anything. So now she is trying to figure out why my spine is shrinking and what is causing the incontinence. She said she won't stop looking for the cause until she finds it. She wants to order some more tests on my rectum (nerve conduction, EMG). But I don't think I want to go thru with them. Heres why: If it is nerve damage that is causing it, it most likely is permanent with no cure. Why should I go thru those painful and humiliating (sp?) test for nothing? They might even come back neg so why bother? I am starting to get sick of all this. Tests, Tests and more Tests with no dx!! So that's my story. Thanks to whoever reads this and for this web site. At least it gives us a place to vent, rant and rave!!  Doxie
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