You sound a lot like me. Most likely you do have MS, I recommend that you look for a neurologist that's extremely knowledgeable about MS, even if he/she is currently more interested in something else. I had my first MS attack in 2002. Back then my right hand, then arm became numb and started tingling like crazy. I also couldn't control my right arm very good anymore. And I am right handed. There was also pain. Then the numbness spread to my shoulder and went down the right side of my body. After 3 weeks the numbness started going down my right leg and that was when I ran to my PCP. Some MRI's were done and I had Demyelinating plaque in my cervical spine, I also had some brain lesions. At first I was dx with MS but then some MS specialists decided I probably didn't have MS so I was sent to the head of neurology at a large University hospital. This neurologist gave me the dx of Demyelinating Disease, which wasn't considered to be MS. He based this on the facts that my spinal fluid didn't show MS, but there are several people here dx with MS and their spinal fluid doesn't have the MS markers neither. Some of us don't show MS in our spinal fluid. Today, a good neurologist knows this. Another reason he thought I didn't have MS was because of where in the brain my lesions are. Today, a good neurologist also knows the brain lesions can be anywhere, they don't have to be in only certain places. Finally I wasn't dx with MS because no one else in the family had it. But 5 yrs later a first cousin in CA was dx with MS. So the chief of Neurology at the large University hospital was wrong about all his reasons. But that was 2002.
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