"tickles" in spine

[redberyl]

My 6 year old has had brief vision changes on and off for 9 months, lasting as little as a minute and as long as two hours. Sometimed she reports blurry vision, sometimes she sees fladhing colored ligjts, and sometimes she says colors look strange, likr everything is mixed with gray. The doctors cant find anything wrong. Now she tells me her "back tickles inside" and shes pointing to her spine. She just told me about it tonight but says it happens a lot. Does that sound at all like a description of the shocking sensation and vision changes that can happen with MS? I will of course ask her neurologist, but hes at a conference until the middle of the week. Thank yoi

[Jimpsull]

Sounds like L'hermites sign - but there are MANY things that can be confused with MS

[euphoniaa]

My 6 year old has had brief vision changes on and off for 9 months, lasting as little as a minute and as long as two hours. Sometimed she reports blurry vision, sometimes she sees fladhing colored ligjts, and sometimes she says colors look strange, likr everything is mixed with gray. The doctors cant find anything wrong. Now she tells me her "back tickles inside" and shes pointing to her spine. She just told me about it tonight but says it happens a lot. Does that sound at all like a description of the shocking sensation and vision changes that can happen with MS? I will of course ask her neurologist, but hes at a conference until the middle of the week. Thank yoi

Hello redberyl, and welcome. I'm so sorry to hear that your daughter is having all these issues, but I'm glad to know that she has a neurologist and other medical professionals working to discover the cause! All neurological problems have similar symptoms and none of them are unique to MS, so it often takes a while to track down a final diagnosis.

If you want to research a little on your own until your next neuro visit, my suggestions are to research "Optic Neuritis" for the eye problems, which is extremely common in MS patients and is often the first thing that leads doctors to diagnose it with us. It's not unique to MS, and I have never had it, however.

As for the "spine tickles," I agree that it sounds a little like "Lhermitte's sign," which is also common in MS, but can be caused by many other medical conditions as well. If you want to check, ask your daughter if it happens only when she bends her head down, to the right and the left. I had a pretty severe case of it for weeks many years ago, but it happened only when I bent my head down to either the right or left (can't remember which one), which sent a tingly jolt down my spine causing one leg to collapse out from under me.

Mine is mostly gone now -- it went away when I started exercising because I thought it was from a childhood whiplash incident. Although it's often assumed Lhermitte's comes from spinal lesions, none of my MRIs have ever found MS lesions in my Cervical, Thoracic, or Lumbar spine, so mine may actually BE from the whiplash.

With apologies for using such an often inaccurate source, Wikipedia, here's their definition and other conditions that can cause it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhermitte's_sign

One more note (encouraging, I hope): I have had MS for likely more than 40 years now (since at least age 22) and I'm doing pretty well. It's obvious to me that my current medical woes are more likely due to my poor, decrepit, ageing body than they are to having MS. And the more I recall weird little episodes from my childhood, I wouldn't be surprised if I had it much earlier.

Good luck to you both and please keep us posted on your progress!

P.S. I was diagnosed with MS at age 52 when I was feeling healthier than I had in my whole life, due to a healthy diet & lots of exercise, even though my MRIs showed that I had had it for many, many years.

[centenarian100]

opening poster: I can't tell you anything definitively, but vision changes lasting less than 24 hours are very unlikely to be due to optic neuritis.