Your story has a lot more parallells with my situation than just about anyone
else I've talked with.
Interesting, in the summer of 1992/3 (don't remember which) I started having
wierd back pain like muscles aching but unusually different - a tightness -
like the muscles were tearing/pulling/stretching or being cut with tiny sharp
things. It was really annoying.
Ihad been working at a tree/shurb nursery in the full heat of the sun and one
of my jobs, for days on end, was to squat down over plants and snip the ends of
small juniper shurbs. The shurbs were in long rows and there were about 14
plants side by side. Two other workers clipped the outside 4 or 5 plants on the
outside rows while I had to go down the center. I had to carefully balance
myself over the pots without damaging the pots or the plants.
I thought for certain taht this is what caused my problems.
But after a few days, I had been noticing an unusual fatique coming over me.
I figured it was the heat and not enough water.
I went to a friends house and when I sat in the couch, i noticed a heaviness
in my backside - as if I was sinking deeply in the couch - it was uncomfortable.
I finally decided to get up and go home and after i stood, I walked towards
the door - about 4-5 feet away and I noticed that it took effort. When I got
into the room I had to stop and rest - I also had to balance myself against the
washer/dryer and then I walked, or stumbled to the outside door.
When I got out - I went to the rail and started walking down the steps.
Suddenly i slipped and fail - but what really happened, after I started
thinking it through is that I put my left foot down to step and it gave out and
down the steps I went. Man my leg started hurting! It had been bugging me but
now it was really hurting. I thought that i must have hurt it going down.
I then found that I could walk to my car without holding on to things or
hoping on my right foot.
When I got home, I collapsed into the bed and slept.
Over the next days and weeks, my left leg got worse and then my left foot
simply stopped working. The toes didn't wiggle, the foot stayed limp and i
thought, "man, what the hell, this is really wierd!!"
I was just 21/22 and had NO insurance. I thought since this started at work,
it had to be work related but I had no luck getting access to the people
running the show - they simply told me that the office area was "off limits!"
But after about 2.5-3 weeks a foreman noticed my problem and I told him the
story (not outside of work of course) and he took me to the boss and said,
"This boy's been injured on the job and if you don't do anything about this
with workman's comp, you're going to have more trouble than its worth"
Things changed, and they wizzed me away to a doc. The doc then sent me
immediately to another city - 25miles away to see a neuro immediately. I was
hospitalized and at first I think he thought MS but I was young and had not a
clue. I got MRI, catscan, spinal tap, ect ect ect - nothing significant showed
up - and I didn't get any of those records until years later. My next issue
came with fig. out what happened! It was "foot drop" but what caused it!
The doc did some painful needle pricks in my leg and concluded, "for the
record," that it was stretch injurying from work. He didn't know if it would
come back but he thought that it probably would in about 9 months. IN the mean
time - I had a brace to keep me going
Suddenly , in a few months, it got better. Then one day, it was normal!! How
wierd!!
Years later, after my 2005 episode, the docs got a copy of those records and
thought that some of the documentation was done because I didn't have insurance
but I had workman's comp. and I was very young to get a non-curable diagnose
like MS that would wreck my insuance chances. - WHO KNOW!
BUT The second item that I found interesting is that in 2006, one year after
my second foot drop, this time on the RIGHT foot, which lead immediately to
the loose of my right leg, (in 2006) I started having the same pain but this
time, I lost my bladder! The doc just said that it was TM based on all the
symptoms that had accumulated over time.
Well - that's a lot of writing - sorry - I typed too much.
Lynn Pouliot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi Randy,
As far as what caused it at the time the doctor's didn't know. I actually
had a small flare ups in 1992 with just back pain and then the tingling from
my feet up and no weakness. At that time I had an mri and it showed a lesion
at t4-t5. They just diagnosed it as tm and left it at that. In 1997 the same
thing but this time I gradually had weakness and was not able to pee. They did
a foley cath and I was hospitalized for 5 days and sent home paralyzed. I
gradually gained back strength with pt and lots of work. In 1998 on another
mri they saw some adenopathy in my chest. They did a biopsy on that and found
sarcoidosis which is usually in the lungs but sometimes affect different
systems. In my case it attacked my central nervous system. They say it is
autoimmune. And now I have had flare ups and paralysis again in 2004 and 2005.
I am immunosuprresents now and I hope they keep working. Anyway that is what
caused my tm. Sorry this is so long. Hope it helps and
let me know what your story is. I never tire of hearing peoples stories.
Lynn in RI (hot and humid)
----- Original Message -----
From: randy rankin
To: Lynn Pouliot
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 1:44 PM
Subject: Lynn - very interesting .... Re: [TMIC] age at incident
wow - almost the same description as my experience - same age - took 3 days -
back pain first - feet feeling funny - then weakness - interesting! What caused
your situation??? what do the doctors believe? What things were going on in the
weeks before??
Lynn Pouliot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I was 37. It took about 3 days
to become totally paralyzed. Started with back pain and tingling from my feet
up. Then the weakness set in.
Lynn in RI
----- Original Message -----
From: Krissy Z
To: Bob and Sue Mattis
Cc: TM List
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 8:50 AM
Subject: RE: [TMIC] age at incident
Boy can I relate. It was 3 years ago this past May,felt a tingling in
my backbone, then legs got all rubbery felt like they were falling asleep.
Within 1/2 hour I could not walk or feel my legs.
I was 44.
~Krissy~
We are all in this together, by ourselves.
- Lily Tomlin
~I'm In pretty Good Shape
For the Shape I am in~
--- On Thu, 6/5/08, Bob and Sue Mattis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Bob and Sue Mattis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: [TMIC] age at incident
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [email protected]
Date: Thursday, June 5, 2008, 5:33 PM
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July 28, 2000 is the DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY. I was 49. Took 10
minutes to become paralyzed from the waist down (T12), and now one of the
“walking wounded”.
Sue M.
Now 57
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 9:50 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TMIC] age at incident
I was 38.
Barbara H.
http://barbarah.wordpress.com/
In a message dated 6/5/2008 8:05:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL
PROTECTED] writes:
I was 62 when I was nailed eleven years ago. A tiny infarction in the
spinal cord at T9-10 dropped me in minutes.
Barbara Alma said, I believe, that she was 48.
Alton
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