Clear DayHi my name is Kathy and I was on this list a few years ago. I left and am now finding my way back I will reintroduce you to my story of TM Growing up I had always had a pain, burning, weird numbness in my legs, it was diognosed as my veins expanding when I was in highschool around 1975/76. In 1979 I gave birth to my first child without a labour pain. Only the sensation that I had to pee. In 1982 with the birth of my second child same thing. I was worned when I was pregnant with the second because I never had pains with the first to get in at the first sign of pressure feeling. First labour was 47 mins. Second was 23 mins. I was glad I had not felt the pain but was curious as to why. Ask the doctor and he said some women are just that way. I continued to have the weird sensations in my legs but it was livable and only when I was tired or stressed. My mother whom I was very close to passed in Aug. of 1987 and I started school in Jan. of 1988, along with being a single mother, the break up of a 3 year relationship I was stressed to the max and ended up catching a very bad flu. I continued attending school but my legs were acting up worse and worse. The pins and needles (like when your leg has gone to sleep and is waking up) actually started lasting for longer and longer. One day I went to get up and fell so the teacher himself drove me home right there and then. A week or so after that I tried to get out of bed one morning and fell, I had no feeling from the waist down. My father came and carried me down 3 flights of stairs and to the hospital. The first hospital I went to the doctor told him to take me to a psch doc as it was all in my head. The second one where my family doctor worked knew I was not faking it and ordered tests right away. Within a month I was to have a lumbar puncture and myelogram (sp) and within a few weeks of that I was sent to a specialist in London Ontario. Point blank I was told I was in the early stages of MS, Just a note here, my sister had GBS when I was about 13-14 the specialist I saw all those years ago told me "my family had a pre-desposition for all this". I still wonder what he meant by that. I continued to see different doctors because mine was not satisfied with Early MS and after a MRI of my spine not my head I was told TM in 1995. This doctor from Toronto, Ontario was a GOD to me. I had an answer that was not "all in my head" but I went another few years before I finally found this organization and got answers I felt I needed to help me deal with this disorder. I am one of the lucky ones here. I still walk and have use of my arms. I have good days when I almost feel "normal" and bad days when it hurts to wear clothes. I have days when the banding is so tight I wake up choking at night and days when I feel like I could walk miles. The past 6 months I have been under allot of stress again and my "residual effects" (as I have been told they are) have started to really act up, I was put on Lyrica in Dec. and it really seems to help my hand and leg pain. My symptoms have not gone away on this but it sure helps me get thru the day. I came back to the list to help me deal with the depression I seem to suffer from more these days than before. Kathy
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