I am a 44 year old female living about 30 miles west of Boston and last
February (1996) I noticed that part of my leg had lost its feeling. I
ignored it for several weeks but it continued to spread down my leg and made
several trips to my internist without much satisfaction. First of all, it
is very hard to explain the feeling since I could feel sensations but it
just didn't seem like my leg was working right, particulary my knee. I saw
an orthopedist who thought that I had simply damaged my saponous (sp?) nerve
in my leg when I had been sledding in January. To make a long story short,
the numbness and use of my leg continued to get worse and then I began to
have episodes when both of my legs would spontaneously "go to sleep" when I
was walking. However, there was no pattern. It was very unnerving because
I couldn't seem to tell when it was going to happen! At this point, my
internist decided that I either had claudication, spinal stenosis, or MS. I
went though a treadmill test to check my blood pressure in my legs, MRI of
my brain, and an MRI of my spine. Nothing showed up on any of these tests
so he sent me to a neurologist who ordered another MRI of my spine using a
more powerful machine. This MRI detected some inflammatory scarring on my
spinal cord and I was given the diagnosis of transverse myelitis,
fortunatley a mild form. It was a relief to at least have a diagnosis after
5 months but not too encouraging to find out there isn't much to do about
it. The neurologist seemed to think the numbness would gradually go away
and it did seem to get better but in the last month the left side of my head
has lost its feeling and extends down my neck and seems to be moving down my
left arm now. The good part is that I don't lose alot of function but it
sure feels weird and I have to think about where my leg is or I fall down,
especially stairs. Will keep you posted on anything new I learn ...