Cold sensation in arm..has anyone had this? fearing MS

[kammie72]

Hi everyone. While I'm suffered from health anxiety for 20 years, I still don't dismiss any of symptoms as coming from that! I've been dealing with a stressful divorce and have experienced tingling, numbness, dizziness, etc whenever i'm around my ex. I went on vacation and had a blast and all symptoms disappeared. But in the past week I've had weird cold sensations in my left arm. I sometimes sleep on it, or prop myself on it, but Ive done that for years. Only now (at 47) have I experienced this coldness. not numbness or tingling really. It just feels cold like i need to put on a sweater. When i look up that symptom i see MS associated with it every time.

Has anyone experienced this before?

I will say I started whole 30 two weeks ago, a really restrictive diet, which led to chills ALL over my body constantly, but now only my arm is chilly so I think it's separate and different. Was wondering if anyone had familiarity with this?

Kailynne

 

[matisworried]

sorry you're dealing with this. i spent a year freaked out i had MS after an abnormality was discovered on a brain MRI that was ordered to look for the cause of some unilateral hearing loss i was experiencing (turns out, sitting next to a screaming guitar amp for 20+ years is bad for your hearing.) in that time, i did A LOT of reading (and even more freaking out) about MS. what you are experiencing doesn't sound like that at all. for starters, MS symptoms aren't going to come and go depending on who you're around. MS symptoms also aren't going to disappear just because you're having fun. you know what illness can present with symptoms like that, though? ANXIETY.

i know it may be hard to accept, but i think the odds are that the sensation you're experiencing in your arm is anxiety-related as well, especially given the fact that your HA is currently centered around MS. us HA-sufferers tend to hyper-focus on the sensations in our bodies. it can cause us to blow completely normal sensations out of proportion... things that "normal" people would blow off or not even notice send us in to full-blown panic. even crazier, our brain can actually create these sensations. prior to my MS scare, my HA revolved around cancer and my heart. i was never concerned about neurological disease and, honestly, didn't know anything about them... MS just wasn't on my radar... and why should it have been? i had ZERO symptoms... but soon after i started worrying about it (thanks to breaking rule number one of HA: DON'T GOOGLE YOUR SYMPTOMS) they started coming out of the woodwork. i began experiencing: tingling, numbness, twitching, clumsiness, balance issues, weakness, difficulty swallowing... just to name a few. this only served to further convince me that i DEFINITELY HAD MS.

i had to wait a year for a follow-up scan and during that time, my symptoms mostly got worse. the results of my follow-up showed that the original abnormality was stable and that no new ones were found which meant i didn't have MS. it took me a week or two to process and accept the news but once i did... like friggin' magic, the symptoms started disappearing. what i was experiencing was very real: i could watch my muscles twitch... but the cause was not mechanical: it was mental.

 

[kammie72]

Wow, I’m glad you’re okay. I know the brain is so powerful and we HA overanalyze every twitch, every tingle. This stuff doesn’t really bother me when I’m out and about shy but when I’m home watching tv — and happy to be relaxing — I start to zero in on these physical ailments. Then, instead of binge-watching a great show, I fixate and start to research and then start spiraling. Then I tell myself I deserve the illness for divorcing my husband (he deserved to get left though) and now I’ll be physically impaired with no one to take care of me and I won’t live to see my kids grow up. It’s a sick cycle. Thank you for listening to me and about my still-cold arm!

 

[matisworried]

Wow, I’m glad you’re okay. I know the brain is so powerful and we HA overanalyze every twitch, every tingle. This stuff doesn’t really bother me when I’m out and about shy but when I’m home watching tv — and happy to be relaxing — I start to zero in on these physical ailments. Then, instead of binge-watching a great show, I fixate and start to research and then start spiraling. Then I tell myself I deserve the illness for divorcing my husband (he deserved to get left though) and now I’ll be physically impaired with no one to take care of me and I won’t live to see my kids grow up. It’s a sick cycle. Thank you for listening to me and about my still-cold arm!

every time you start to worry, remind yourself that you weren't having symptoms when you were busy doing stuff and ms doesn't work that way, that you're not going to waste your time worrying about something you don't have because worrying does absolutely zero good.

forget your soon-to-be-ex-husband too. if you weren't happy for whatever reason, you made the right choice and don't need to feel guilty. i got divorced a little over ten years ago. I'm the happiest I've ever been DESPITE MY HA.

oh yeah... lucky for you... no one deserves (or gets) an illness because they owe some sort of karmic debt, so don't let it get to you.

 

[PanickyChick]

Wow, I’m glad you’re okay. I know the brain is so powerful and we HA overanalyze every twitch, every tingle. This stuff doesn’t really bother me when I’m out and about shy but when I’m home watching tv — and happy to be relaxing — I start to zero in on these physical ailments. Then, instead of binge-watching a great show, I fixate and start to research and then start spiraling. Then I tell myself I deserve the illness for divorcing my husband (he deserved to get left though) and now I’ll be physically impaired with no one to take care of me and I won’t live to see my kids grow up. It’s a sick cycle. Thank you for listening to me and about my still-cold arm!

My anxiety is always worse when all is quiet and I finally have a chance to sit down end relax. It’s awful, I know, so just know that you’re definitely not alone in that.