Symptoms that come and go with anxiousness, excitement, or cold temperature

[weirdone]

I am a 55 year old male and I have symptoms that started 3 years ago. Ridiculous startle response - over exaggerated jerkiness and major muscle movement. Loud noise (car horn), external touch (kick rock) triggers startle response. With excitement, anxiousness, or cold temperatures (or large temperature fluctuation?) experience leg stiffness (left) while walking or leg shakes if sitting or lying down. And all around hyper reactive reflexes especially in knees (clonus). Cannot perform rapid muscle movements any longer (scrambling eggs, shivering, running, etc - not fluid but jerky). Along with these symptoms, if anxious or excited I have slurred speech. Been to 3 different neurologists. Diagnosis varied MS, Parkinsons, mini stroke. Two MRIs 18 months apart showed no change - one either demyelination or vascular event in the left brain where signals go from mid brain to frontal (inputs/outputs). Trial of Dopamine - no positive effects. Neck US doppler to check arteries to brain all good nothing there. Believe it all started with a rollercoaster ride where my head got stuck in a downward position (chin to left chest) due to high G turn. No blackout or loss of consciousness. Could be coincidence but noticed some odd symptoms 2 days later. My symptoms are odd and come and go with anxiousness and temperature (change). Could mini stroke symptoms come and go with the environment (anxious, temperature, etc) or is it something else? Could anxiety alone cause symptoms like this?

MRI findings from radiologist 18 months after first MRI
1. There is no acute intracranial abnormality. There are no areas of abnormal parenchymal enhancement.

2. A tiny focus of T2 and FLAIR hyperintensity is seen in the periventricular left frontal corona radiata, unchanged. Findings are nonspecific, and may represent a tiny focus of chronic microvascular ischemic change versus demyelination/dysmyelination. No new lesions are seen. No enhancing lesions are seen.

3. There are no areas of abnormal parenchymal enhancement.

[agate]

Welcome, weirdone!

Nobody here has any special medical training but some have been dealing with neurological disorders for a long time. That doesn't make us experts, of course.

I have MS and have had an exaggerated startle response for decades, probably part of the hyperreflexia that is often found when I get tested. I sometimes have slurred speech. But you don't necessarily have MS just because you have a couple of the symptoms. Those symptoms are typical of a whole long list of disorders.

If your doctors haven't already put you through this routine, you should definitely look closely at any medicines you've been taking, even supplements and over-the-counter remedies, to find out if any of them might have been causing some or all of your symptoms. If you find one that might be the culprit, try doing without it for long enough to see if your symptoms improve--that means more than just a couple of days.

Tremors are classified:

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

You might want to check over the list and see if you can analyze the tremors you have.

And by all means keep track of when each type of symptom happens and how long it lasts. Then look over your record and see if you notice any patterns. This kind of information could be helpful for your doctor.

As for the roller-coaster ride, that sounds like a bad one. But then I've stayed away from roller coasters after riding one once as a teenager.

Once was enough.

[Prot]

Not the same thing, but I experience flu like symptoms when overly stressed. Sometimes when stirring food my hand will do an involuntary jerk.

[flatcap]

I experience involuntary jerks, too. I don't know whether that is my MS or Parkinson's. I think it's probably the Parkinson's.

[agate]

And you can have these involuntary twitches or jerks going on without being aware of them.

I happened to look in the mirror and noticed that a cheek was twitching uncontrollably. I had no idea that was going on until I looked. This has happened with hands too.

[flatcap]

That's like my resting tremor. When my doc first spotted it, I was totally unaware of it. I did notice the jerks, though. Kind of hard to miss those! LOL

Gosh darn Parkinson's. At least it's good for a joke sometimes.

[agate]

And the jokes are? Please share any jokes. Laughter is good for the soul--did somebody say that?

[flatcap]

Please share any jokes.

Other than myself, the only joke that comes to mind is the one I posted above.

[agate]

LOL! Jerks do have a way of making their presence known.