frustrated with answers

[rinman]

I am a 35 year old stay at home mother of 4. I am experiencing a ton of symptoms and am very frustrated with the course of all this. About nine years ago the symptoms started but very vague. I will list the symptoms.. Fatigue, morning stiffness, headaches, blurred vision, eye and face pain, low back pain, left hip pain radiating down leg, calf cramps and spasms, shooting pain in arms and legs, pins and needles in feet, cold hands and feet, sensitivity to cold, confusion or a feeling like living in a fog, short term memory lapses, dry skin. This is just naming the symptoms that I can recall in seconds as I am writing this. These symptoms do not always occur together. They seem to have progressed in the last 2 years. When I was pregnant in 2003-2004, I had no symptoms the entire pregnancy and 2-3 months after. I have seen numerous doctors and they all say about the same thing. Without ordering many tests, they want to give me anti-depressants, with no explanation and send me on my way. For instance, I was seeing a rheumatologist. She did 2-3 tests for a thyroid work-up and 2 for inflammation. On my next visit she did no physical exam and told me I had fibromyalgia. Isn't fibromyalgia only diagnosed by excluding everything else and having 11 out of the 18 tenderpoints? The other problem is that these symptoms come and go. There are days, even weeks, when I am pain free. My gyenocologist asked if I have ever been tested for MS and then referred me to the neurologist that I currently have seen. The only test that I have had performed in the past 5 years is my recent EMGs that were requested from my neuro. I first saw him in Jan and will not see him again until March. My question is, what tests should I be requesting from my neurologist? What other information will be helpful for my neuro to know when I see him in March? I want to have everything prepared so that I can get a diagnosis ASAP. It has been a very long 9 years. Thank you for any help you can give me.

frustrated in Ohio