Having MS have I been dealt a card which is called the Joker?

The Joker card

Sometimes I wonder what is Multiple Sclerosis? Is it just a figment of someones imagination or a trick by a sick and invisible entity. I mean really how can you be sat quietly at home just chilling out and suddenly for no explicable reason you have a tarantula walking across your forehead! No really that’s what it feels like.

I wont put up an image as I know some people have phobias over spiders. I can remember clearly trying not to panic as I assumed a spider had crawled onto my face, so carefully without panic got up and slowly scared out of mind and hanging onto my hand rails for dear life, walked to the mirror located in my hallway. Expecting to see this long haired creature on my forehead instead of which there was NOTHING! I could still feel it walking across my forehead. Jeez I must have been going insane or something. It was a horrible sensation. Quickly I washed my face, and the sensation did go away. It was warm I remember that.

This was a madness and period of my life when I suddenly was invaded by ants, and nits in my hair, and fleas running across my face. I got more exercise going to the mirror to see all these crawly things but never found one.

Invisible nits which made you scratch your scalp raw. Boy that Joker card was aving a larf with me. What else was he going to chuck at me.

I did have a giggle though when I found out what this sensation is called. Formication, my brain being my brain immediately went to the naughty step lol, but basically it’s a type of paresthesia. Paresthesia happen when you feel sensations on your skin that don’t have a physical cause. Paresthesia can take many forms. These can include burning, tingling, or numbness. With formication, you might also describe the “crawling” sensation as feeling like “pins and needles.” Formication is also called a tactile hallucination. This means that you’re feeling a sensation that has no physical cause.

Formication can be a symptom of several conditions. These conditions include  Fibromyaligia, Multiple Sclerosis and also Parkinson’s disease.

Oh yes also Withdrawal from alcohol or drug use can also trigger formication

So knowing what it was and it had a name kind of mind it easier to cope with but at one point I was totally paranoid thinking my house was infested with little crawlie things. Eek.

Another wonderful sensation was the biting bee. I was actually in the garden with my chickens when I suddenly felt a bee or wasp sting me really hard, jeez it made me jump out of my skin and my husband came into view just as I was screaming in pain, crying “omg omg omg” I have been stung by something, as I hastily started to drag my trousers off myself trying not to fall over to find the offending perpetrator of my body. Mike came rushing up to me to help, and between us we managed to get my trousers off but nothing fell out onto the floor and there wasn’t a mark on my leg where I felt the bite.

No way how could that be? (bee get it lol).

This was getting ridiculous now. I was really being dealt the Joker card, what was going to come next I wonder.

Have you ever stood say in the kitchen and feel someone is looking at you from behind? You just have that feeling that there is someone there and kind of hold your breath because your scared to death to turn around, then suddenly you actually feel someone push you? Now it was either a spirit and I can assure you it wasn’t an alcoholic one or it was another weird symptom perhaps some sort of spasm, but I swear to god I had been pushed although I never actually moved.

Ah the joys of MS.

A new one for me was trickling cold water down the back of my legs. Yep this is true. I again would be minding my own business and going about my day probably just musing about life or something similar when suddenly the back of my legs would actually feel wet and I could without doubt feel what was like water or wet going down my leg. Well for someone with a disability I could sure move when the needs must and lucky for me I was stood very close to our downstairs toilet. Making a Beeline for that as I assumed without realising it and with some horror at myself had peed. Expecting to see urine soaked underwear and the back of my trousers wet there was NOTHING. Nope all dry and nicely groomed where I left it all in the morning after I had my shower.

Now this only really happened a few times and it was earlier on in my journey. I did read about a disease that is mistaken for MS or vice versus called Arachnoiditis, but for me I feel as that is caused through nerve problems in the spine perhaps this had caused it for me. I belong to MS groups and have read others who have also experienced this with MS. If it had happened more often then perhaps I would have been worried, but I did mention it to my neurologist and he just looked at me and smiled and with a reassuring pat on my hand told me it was all down to my illness.

Weirdly enough one of the first symptoms that presented itself to me at the beginning was the strange sensation of wearing wellie boots running through a frozen field with a hole in your wellie, and freezing water making your toes feel like they had frostbite. Now that was a great one and I was convinced if I looked at my toes they would be encased in ice lol.

I did mention these things to my neurologist who said they were all forms of parenthesis.

To be honest writing this down I am feeling like some sort of nut job lol. I mean how can all these weird things happen to me or do they happen to others too. I don’t remember playing a game of cards or actually being handed the Joker card, but somehow somewhere I must have really ticked someone off, as even though these symptoms were not in themselves serious they were driving me mad.

I know I am not the only one who suffers with all these things and thankfully that is kind of comforting to know.

One of the worse ones I had though was the pain in the front of my shin. Usually my weirdo symptoms exhaust themselves very quickly and disappear as mysteriously as they came, but the shin pain was horrific. I remember at the time pushing myself to walk more with my dog. This was early onset. When I got home and was just resting on my recliner the pain started. I swear to god that someone an invisible entity had stabbed me in the front of my shin with a large knife. The pain was so intense I grabbed hold of my shin and shouted out and nearly scared mike to death. Now this pain lasted days so bad was it I really had to see my GP. As usual I got THAT LOOK, and yes you guessed it well it was down to whatever was going on with me at the time. I was told to take paracetamol and rest.

Thanks doc, so I did, and roughly 2 weeks later it finally had gone, just like it came.

Oh dear the bee is back. Yep I must have wished it on myself. At the moment living in my little sheltered flat I am trying to make an area outside which makes it more homely or like the home I left. On one side is a border which was so neglected. I had asked if I could maintain it, and was granted permission, so all the old overgrown plants which were so neglected were removed by my gardener, and the ground was given a good feeding. I decided to turn it into a little bee garden by having planted only plants that would encourage bees. Within 2 weeks I saw my first bee and was quite excited I know right I live such an exciting life. But there was the little bee, flitting away busy from Borage to flowering Thyme, gathering pollen to make the honey.

Since then I have had more and more arrive and I believe its like one is the scout who goes back to a hive and communicates that there is a bounty to be had follow me boys …………

Bees off to feast

Ah where was I oh yes, the bees starting to come to my area and I love watching them always so busy. Then just a few days ago the biting came back. Sting, sting sting……….. on my knee of all places really bad. I did lift my trouser leg up but in my heart I knew it was just an hallucination another Joker card, like he was saying “you want bees………….well your going to get bees”! There they were like magic back on my leg biting me.

Fleetingly in my brain I wandered is it true you get what you wish for? I am not scared of it now though, and just ride it through until it decides to try something new the last attack was yesterday after being at the neurologist and the heat was exhausting, so I wonder what will be on the cards today…………………..!

If you’re reading this with MS and suffer similar please share as we are not alone.

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