I'm going through an especially stressful time at the moment - marriage has broke down and I have two young children to care for. For the past 3 weeks I've been getting numbness and tingling in my left arm, accompanied by fuzzy headedness/feeling spaced out, headaches and blurred vision. It's not been constant, on average once a day for the past three weeks, sometimes lasting minutes, sometimes hours. Two days ago the numbness started and then I had shooting pains going down my arm into my hand. The shooting pains stopped but the numbness carried on. Later that evening I had what I thought was a panic attack - pins and needles in my hand, lightheadedness, struggling to breathe. After the panic attack the numbness continued and it was still there when I woke yesterday. I went to minor injuries and was seen by a doctor there who, upon examination, said that my reflexes are brisker on my left hand side in both my arm and leg. From the examination I realised that the loss of sensation is all down my left side. It's not completely numb, I can feel it when touched but I can feel more on the right side than the left. I can use my arms and legs fine but, with my arm at least I have to put more effort in. It feels weaker and heavy, like there's extra weight attached to it and it tires easily if I'm carrying something. Following the examination the doctor advised me to go to A&E as he felt I needed a CT scan. They did similar physical examinations there and then sent me for a head CT which was clear. They came to the conclusion that it's a type of migraine as I have a history of migraines. However this isn't anything like the migraines I've had before. They said to take over the counter pain killers, but I'm doing this and it's having no effect.
The numbness/weakness is still there in my arm and I am noticing it in my leg now that I'm more conscious of it. When I first stood up this morning I noticed a tingling shooting sensation when my foot came in to contact with the floor, and I remembered that I had numbness in my foot, also left, at the beginning of February which resulted in me injuring my foot and needing to go to minor injuries for x rays. It wasn't broken and no one had any idea how it was bruised and swollen from doing nothing other than walking on it when it was numb, or indeed why it was numb in the first place.
I will be going to the GP to follow up about this. I'm wondering if it could all be related to stress, but I mentioned that to the first doctor I saw and he said that stress or anxiety often bring things to the surface but they can't give you actual, physical symptoms - like the brisk reflexes.
Has anyone had similar or know what this could possibly be? Could it really be a migraine? Even though it feels nothing like a migraine to me?