I caught a cold. How I caught it, I have no idea. I haven’t left the house. The cold caught me anyway. Either way, I was mostly really stuffed up yesterday. Not a big deal.
Today, I woke up sore and tired. With a cough and a sore throat. Then not too long later I was smacked with a fever. Honestly, shouldn’t have been that big of a deal.
This triggered a pseudo-flare:
Pseudoexacerbation is a flare-up of chronic or prior MS symptoms. It can make your chronic MS symptoms worse or bring back MS symptoms you had with relapses in the past. But a pseudoexacerbation cannot cause neurological symptoms you have never had before. This is because a pseudoexacerbation is not caused by new damage to the nerves. Multiplesclerosis.net
With that fever came a bunch of MS symptoms:
- Weak legs. Hard time standing and walking
- Drop foot. But severe drop foot.
- Burning skin pain. Which isn’t a typical one for me. It is a Fibromyalgia one for me, so maybe that is also flaring. Anyway, my arms and back are burning with allodynia.
- Numb fingertips on the left hand
- Extreme fatigue and I slept a whole lot of the day
I assume it was the fever itself doing it and not the cold. Because once I got it under control in the evening I was walking fine. Still have the burning skin pain though.
Things that can trigger this type of flare:
- Heat
- Stress (emotional, physical)
- Infections
- Vaccines
- Hormonal changes
- Other medical conditions (thyroid disease, diabetes, or anemia)
This is the first sudden onset pseudo-flare I have had. So it caught me off guard. I have had a few due to extreme heat weather when I was overheating. And this is similar, the body is feverish after all.
Talk about being laid out from a cold though. Brings a whole new level to a cold. I had a hell of a time getting around. My legs were just that weak and so the right leg with the drop foot was dragging and dipping. And it was just so sudden that it hit. Then I just crashed and fell asleep for the majority of the day.
The skin pain is intense and it scraps against my clothing with just a raw, sun burn sort of pain. The fact that it remains and was there yesterday, just in the arms, makes me want to keep an eye on it. I know a relapse can be triggered from being sick too. So I will just pay attention to what happens when I recover from this cold.
And keep track of symptoms of course.
I found it deeply concerning. That functionality could just tank that fast. Albeit this was temporary. All the more reason for me to be on medication. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, and so I was quite worried it was a relapse. And it can happen without medication at any time. So there is that fact to deal with until I see my neurologist.
Chronically Nikki 