Tingling Prickly Legs - Spinal Cord Disorders Message Board

wiggy1000 · 03-30-2005, 06:48 AM

Hi there,

I am at my the end of my tether with this. Almost a year ago I suffered 3 severe headaches at the back of my head/neck. I had two weeks of dizziness before attending ER. Here I had a lumbar puncture and CT scan all normal. A month later while awaiting a CT Angiogram I started getting this tingling prickly burning sensation (mostly prickly now). Neurologist was not interested and dismissed. Got a second opinion from a neuroseurgon and he also said "put up with them". He did an MRI of neck and middle and lower back. I have a slight wear on a disc near my neck and a slight wear near my lower back. but he said overall that my MRI is "Normal" and it did not have anything to do with this feeling. I work at a computer every day but this "prickly feeling" is driving me insane. Sometimes it goes away but this is the worst stint of it (10 days). When I awake in the mornings its virtually not there but as soon as I get up I can feel it coming on. My Doctor does not know. Can anyone shed some light. Is the MRI a definative test and will it show everything?

P.S. I have put out my neck on 4 different occasions in the last 1.5 years.
My lower back has always been weak!

rob_zzz · 03-31-2005, 04:14 AM

I've got the same thing - prickling all over my body, including legs, arms, torso, buttocks. Also a lot of tingling in the feet and hands. In addition both feet and hands go numb quite easily when at rest and when sleeping.

I injured my neck sept 05 and had temporary paralysis at the time of the injury. I've got a herniated c5/c6 disc that has reduced in size slightly since the initial injury. There's also bulges at c3-c5 and the cervical canal is slightly narrow. The doctor's have said that my symptoms are likely residual minor spinal cord injury from the initial spinal shock. Initially I was worried I was deteriorating but am less worried now - but I continue to monitor it and the surgeon is still monitoring it (next checkup in a couple of weeks).

I've had a variety of other mild symptoms as well including feelings of weakness/heaviness in legs, plus stabbing pains and pins here and there and very stiff feet and tight muscles.

I beleive that doing low impact aerobic exercise (e.g. walking) as well as stretching helps it a bit. Computer work is the worst for it. The prickliness and other symptoms go up and down - some days very bad others not so bad, I haven't really been able to find a correlation (except that a lot of time on a computer, particularly if I don't watch my posture is bad).

It might be worth getting a second opinion on your MRI - I think some medical practitioners are so used to seeing major problems that they sometimes discount minor ones as irrelevant, but if there's some cord contact from a herniated disc then it could cause mild symptoms.

rob_zzz · 03-31-2005, 04:20 AM

I've also been getting accupuncture which I think helps slightly as well. Also you find that you notice this stuff less once you stop stressing about it (I have mild symptoms all day every day but now that I'm less stressed about them I find it fairly easy to ignore them, while initially every little thing had me panicky).

wiggy1000 · 04-01-2005, 01:51 AM

Thanks for the reply,

I agree, the more I get stressed the worse I get and also the less sleep I get the worse I am. Its a very irriting condition. Has your consultant acknowledged that this condition is coming from your spine?

rob_zzz · 04-01-2005, 06:01 AM

yes, plus I have no doubt because it started to occur not long after my injury which was quite a traumatic one (temporarily paralysed from the neck down). But two neurosurgeons and an orthopedic surgeon have all confirmed that these symptoms are probably a result of spinal cord injury at the time of the accident and/or ongoing irritation due to herniated disc.