Stress

[Port]

Hi all, was diagnosed at Mayo with PLS in dec. 2013. I continue to work pretty much full time. My job is very high stress position. It seems to me when things get overly difficult at work my condition worsens. I get severe spasms and cramps. Also for past two months my face has started tingling and I get migraines. During this time my eyes feel like they are throbbing. Is this all part of pls or am I crazy?

 

[Tokahfang]

Unless you are actually interested, I'll spare you the chemical explanation, but in layman speak:

Stress, the physical side of it, floods your weakest points. If you have a bad stomach, that is what will act up. If you have neurological issues, that is where it will show. If you had a bad knee, your knee would hurt more.

It isn't so much part of PLS as it is that being someone with a chronic neurological illness makes it easier for stress to show up in those ways.

 

[FSHolbrook]

I have found that Tonic water and a teaspoon of French's prepared mustard will help reducing cramps even stopping them

Rick

 

[billbell52]

There is a symptom that a lot of PLS'ers have called PseudoBulbar Affect (PBA). It causes excessive crying/laughing. It also causes me to be overly emotional and to get upset easily. My clonus gets worse and I muscle twitching.

 

[IhavePLS]

Beky is spot on again (as always). Stress exacerbates the symptoms of any condition -- not just PLS. And it can do so wildly.

Short story: I had a four-level (L3-S1) lumbar fusion with hardware back in 2009. It's hard to say now whether the low back problem (it was quite serious, and lasted ~7 years until the 2009 surgery) masked the neurological (PLS) symptoms. But also very likely as well.

This morning, I sit at my home office desk wondering if it is the low back spasm and pain that is responsible for the pain I am having in both of my legs. But then I recognize that, because I have PLS as well as chronic lumbar spasm/pain, it could be either/or.

And so the "cause" no longer matters to me, really. What matters is symptom control -- as someone here once quipped: "I just want to have a day."

Mike

 

[MaxEidswick]

>And so the "cause" no longer matters to me, really. What matters is symptom control -- as someone here once quipped: "I just want to have a day."

ditto that!