Written By: Stuart Schlossman
March 4, 2009
Definition: Painful paroxysmal symptoms (PPS) were defined as transient painful symptoms in any area of the body, with abrupt onset, brief duration, from a few seconds to a few minutes, with repetitive and stereotyped features.
PAIN is My problem this week. Brought on probably by my "over-doing" of things this past weekend. On Saturday, I attempted to play what is known as a game of Golf in Mid 80 Temperature. What my game looked like and became, was trying to keep the ball from landing 10-20 feet in front of me or keeping it out of the water hazards along each fairway. An utter disaster at the heat caused almost imminent fatigue, not allowing my arms to correctly swing at that little ball. Please Return to this page to leave your comments - thank you
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4 comments:
What you're describing here is amazingly similar to what I have been going through the past couple of weeks (and have gone through off and on over the years).
I once heard a talk on MS pain by the current Medical Director of the MSAA, Jack Burke. He says there are two kinds of MS pain...nerve pain and musculoskeletal pain. Nerve pain is treated with neurontin or Keppra and occasionally Elavil added at bedtime to cut the pain perception and assist in sleep. Musculoskeletal pain is caused by spasticity (see the article in this week's Website "Oh my achin....") and is treated with anti inflammatory medications and anti-spasmodics.
I think we run into trouble when the pain is a combination of both types and may need both treatments to address the discomfort.
Medicines like Neurontin or Keppra work best when taken regularly to keep blood levels of the drug up. However, adding something like Elavil (amytriptoline) at bedtime can often help to break the cycle. Taking an as needed antispasmodic like Zanaflex or Valium in addition to the baclofen you might already be on can sometimes assist in alleviating the discomfort.
Our MS docs are only recently discovering (as a result partly from input of their patients) that pain management is often a big (but usually occasional) part of symptom management in people with MS.
Talk to your doc about having something in your medicine arsenal to deal with unexpected bouts of pain like this brought on by increased activity or changes in activity.
Cherie C. Binns RN BS MSCN
Hi Stuart,
I've had a similar episode shortly after I was diagnosed and went through a round of steroids. A few weeks after, I'm sitting at work and all of a sudden BAM I felt my right side of my body spasm and almost shut down. It lasted for a few seconds and released. Then it came back on/off. The reason why I'm reaching out is because I figured you might benefit from my treatment:
I called my non-MS doctor who prescribed Ativan - anti-anxiety to keep calm (2mg). That helped me calm down (because I was freaking out) but it didn't get rid of the symptoms. I went to see him and he put me on Keppra (seizure medication). I was on that for about a week and a half and the episodes reduced in intensity but weren't gone. At that time I went to see a MS specialist here in NYC and she switched me from Keppra to Tegratol. She said tegratol was better at managing these symptoms. It took a few days for the tegratol to kick in, however it helped. It actually reduced the occurances to about 3-4 times a day and reduced the severity. Eventually they just dissapeared. I was on tegratol for another week or two, however I seemed to have developed an allergic reaction (skin rash) from it. I got off the tegratol but the symptoms have not come back and I've been symptom free for the last 6 months.
Just an FYI - good luck and keep on blogging.
- John
Sorry to answer you so late. I developed painful spasms in my R upper arm that caused me to drop whatever I had in my R hand. This occurred almost every 30 minutes and would last for only 15-20 seconds. This was back in 1976 before there were MRI's or tests for myelin bands in the spinal fluid. I was placed on phenobarbitol, the most common medication for seizures at that time. It did nothing.
Later on I was switched to Tegretol that stopped these spasms in 18 hours. I stayed on tis anti-convulsant for 2 weeks and then stopped it. It wasn't until 1980 that I was diagnosed with MS, basically because of history and a new test that identified increased immunoglobulins in the spinal fluid.
By the way, despite having other symptoms commonly associated with MS, I have never had a recurrence of spasms in any part of my body since.
Gerry
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