Neurologist First Appointment: Advice?

[juliacristina]

Any advice? I have my first neurologist appointment tomorrow morning after waiting 3 weeks for it.I've written down all the symptoms I have. Do doctors like you to do that and then show them the paper? Or do they prefer that you just tell them what you've been experiencing.Any other advice appreciated!Here is what I wrote down:Since Duration Symptom~ Jan 1, 2005 5 Months Experienced symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. Woke up almost every night with hands asleep, had constant pain in both wrists, had infrequent shock feelings in fingers. Symptoms mostly went away after about 5 months and now only symptom is once every week or two some portion of my hands (ex: pinkies on both hands) will fall asleep.~ Feb 1, 2005 3 Years Feel clumsy when walking, very vague, worse when tired. Very slowly progressively worse.Dec 1, 2007 3 Months Intermittent extreme itchiness. First noticed while driving home from work. Scratch constantly for an hour.Dec 1, 2007 3 Months Periodic burning feeling and flushing of face, ears, forehead. Sometimes random, common when anxious.Dec 1, 2007 3 Months Very bad fatigue despite regularly getting 8 hours sleep.~ Dec 1, 2007 3 Months Twitching first noticed in upper right and left abdomen while in bed. Then noticed both eyes, both arms, buttocks, both legs, both feet.Jan 15, 2007 3 Weeks Pain in right ankle, bottom of right heel and in achilles tendon. Still vague but much more pronounced weird feeling when walking. Also feel very stiff when walking.Anyway, that's what I have. I'll post a reply after my appointment.

 

[onesMJonesy]

I think writing it down is a good idea, otherwise you may forget to tell the dr everything you've experienced. I know when I saw my neuro I wrote everything down and he didn't seem bothered by it at all.Good luck with itMaria

 

[juliacristina]

Had my neurologist appointment today. Tested reflexes, did the follow finger with eyes, smile, tested cold against face, tested I could feel a touch on both sides of my face, holding arms out, tested walking on toes, tested walking on heels and a few other things I'm not thinking of now.He mentioned possibility of being benign twitching, thought my description of ankle pain was probably an orthopedic problem. Said it was difficult to put together the symptoms I was having. He was really inquisitive about stressors in my life both now and when this began - which is smart because I'm having a lot of anxiety currently (new job, two young kids + one on the way, house for sale, etc). Ordered blood tests (sed rate, tsh, t4 free, t4 total, lyme, cpk, ldh, lactate, some other things I can't read his handwriting), brain MRI with and without dye and scheduled an EMG for a couple weeks from now.In the meantime I'm focusing on relieving anxiety and stress and am having good success in not focusing on this.

 

[LeftyCanuck1]

Hey JSounds like your on the BFS train man, it all sounds exact so just relax and listen to the man. You do have the stressers and all that so work on those things that you can control and make it to those diagnostic procedures that are gonna confirm what the Nuero has already diagnosed.Take CareLefty C