Visit to the Neurologist

A few months back, I had a bone and CT scan performed to check for cancer.  During the CT scan, I got this really weird warming sensation in my right upper thigh right after the doc injected the contrast.  I mentioned it when it happened and she thought that was odd.  Well that little incident stuck out in my head.  Shortly thereafter I experienced these odd warming sensations in the same area at random times of the day but not every single day.  I'd be sitting at my desk and all the sudden my right inner thigh would warm up.  And a few seconds it would go away.  It felt like someone was rubbing my leg producing friction, hence the warming sensation.  My legs wouldn't go numb, nor would they feel like they were falling asleep.  Just that one area would get warm and then go back to normal.  It was so strange and annoying enough for me to take notice of it.


Odd, and a tad worried I went to the oncologist who referred me to a neurologist.  A neurologist is a doctor who specializes in treating diseases of the nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord.  I knew the doctor had something to do with the nerves but not including the brain and spinal cord which makes me realize how many doctors specialize in so many parts of the human body and how lucky I am that I live in a modern world.  Anyway, when I called, the appointment was scheduled 1 1/2 months out.  I thought geez, had I known that, I would have brought it to the attention of my oncologist sooner.  So as time went by, my leg started to settle down.  I thought, "go figure that once I actually get my appointment my leg will not longer be acting up and I will have wasted my time and the doctors time.  But low and behold, the wait was over. She had a cancellation, calling me to see if I'd like to bump my appointment up 3 weeks.  Ummm.....yeah!

Lucky or not so lucky, my leg started acting up again today.  Good timing leg.  For the last few weeks the warming sensation had kind of gone away and I thought, this doctor isn't going to believe me if I have no current symptoms.  But today it magically re-appeared.  So I thought, is this all in my head?  Am I making this stuff up?  No, I'm not.  I know I'm not crazy.  When I sit at work and its super quiet in the office and my leg starts to warm up for no reason, that's not crazy, that's real.

I explained my condition to Dr. Stone.  When it happened, what it felt like and how long it's been going on.  I even told her that the warming sensation ended for a bit and then my right leg felt heavy.  Not like a dead weight but just heavy, like weights.  But not while I walked, only while I sat.  Then I wondered as I was talking.  Am I just sitting to much during the day?  Am I causing my own drama?

Remember it was a pain in my ribs that started all this testing?  I slouch at work a lot and I shoveled a hell of a lot of snow this winter.  Can I be doing this to my body myself?

Dr. Stone did some minor tests just to see my leg strength and how my body reacted to things.  Like the reflex test (which she said was good since I did have chemo) and had me follow her finger with my eyes without moving my head, pricking me with a sharp object to see if I had different sensations in my legs.  Nothing.  Not a darn thing was different.  In fact, after answering all her questions and completing her random tests, she didn't have a diagnosis for my leg.  Of course I asked if there was a possibility of a blood clot and she said no.  Same as the oncologist office.  So that put me at ease, although without an official test, I can't rule it out in my brain.  Anyway, she said that I should monitor my leg and see how this goes for 1 more month until I see Dr. Wilkinson again.  If I still have it, she will request that I get a scan done.  But for now she wants to see what it will do.  She feels like the injection of the dye might have escaped and irritated the leg in some way, like an air bubble.

It's so hard to understand doctor talk sometimes.  And now that I have been a pin cushion to many doctors, I wish I had gone in the medical field myself so I could understand what is going on with me.
So...that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try to focus on my symptoms and document this so I can go to the doctors with fact and patterns verses saying random and I have no clue.

We'll see how this all pans out.