spasms, chest pain, spinal sensitivity- French Canadian

[Iris5467]

Hello everyone,

I am seeking other ideas for a current diagnosis of pericarditis and restless leg syndrome the doctors have given my husband.
He is a Quebecer of the typical French decent who has no, and will have no contact with his family and thus I am unable to obtain a family history.
He has a vague memory as a child of being told he had a disorder which runs in his family. His sister had it as well. It seems to involve the spinal nerves. He doesn't remember what it was called, but it doesn't seem to be spastic ataxia (hopefully).

The area along his spine has always been VERY sensitive. An accidental poke or prod can be extraordinarily painful for him. Around the beginning of June this year we tried to start jogging (we managed one 15 minute run and he was fine, even happy later that day), but this caused extreme pain in his mid and lower back over the next few days. It also seemed to worsen his sleep spasms. These spasms had been happening maybe once a week or two and were concentrated in the legs and lower back, not painful, but usually large enough to wake him up if he happened to be asleep. They were more likely/severe if I had my arm around his waist or if I was touching his mid or lower back.

Now they happen several times (2 -5) a week and are large and long enough to make falling asleep very difficult, and are also frightening him enough to give him true insomnia at times. Several episodes have laster more than 15 minutes. These episodes all run the same way; he lays down for a few minutes, and then his leg or lower back will jerk and spasm for between 1 and 15 seconds or so. If he continues to try to ignore it and sleep the same will happen, except that the spasm may be longer or more severe. Alcohol seems to make it worse. We tried a chiropractor who claimed his spine curved too much at the base and not enough at the neck. We went twice a week to have his spine re-aligned and it did seem to help with the pain and the spasms. I believe we had gone for about 3 weeks total.

At that point my husband woke one day not feeling well (no chest pain, just general malaise). We had a birthday celebration with a friend that evening which he wanted to go to anyway. We went, there was some drinking involved (beer), came home and went to bed. The next day my husband was feeling worse and was having chest pains. We went off to the hospital where they ran plenty of blood tests and we eventually ended up talking to a cardiologist who told us pericarditis was most likely. NSAIDs were prescribed but the pain was very severe and after two days there was no change. He was changed to prednisone as well as the NSAID (Ibuprofen I believe), and then also given an anti-anxiety pill and a month off work when he had an anxiety attack in his office as well. The insomnia got worse as he wasn't able to lay flat to sleep.

The doctor has had to adjust the way they were weaning him off the prednisone two or three times since, as every time he hits the 15 mg a day threshold the pain seems to come back. He started at close to 1 g a day I believe. He can now sleep flat and is gradually stepping back into work, but the chest pain is back again and he has no short-term disability time left. He also saw a neurologist about a month ago who gave him the diagnosis for restless leg syndrome and prescribed a muscle relaxant and a sleep pill (cyclobenzaprine 5-10 mg, clonazepam 0.5 mg max of 3 times a week). The neurologist also told him the issue was probably caused by him being too short and muscular for his frame.

He has also recently began to notice muscle weakness in his arms. The anxiety has been gone for about 2 months now.

Summary of symptoms and current duration:

chest pain - dull, sometimes more intense after stress, 5 months on and off
arm weakness, 3 weeks
spinal sensitivity, lifelong
severe spasms of legs and lower back while at rest, 6 months, with milder version probably lifelong
insomnia, 6 months
anxiety, 3 month but gone currently

List of current medications:
prednisone -15 mg a day
colchine - 1.2 mg a day
lyrica - 25 to 75 mg a day for 3 weeks
cyclobenzaprine - 2.5 to 5 mg a day
lorazepam - 0.5 to 1 mg when he can't sleep
clonazepam - 0.15 mg when needed, no more than 3 times a week

My husband is 22 years old, around 5'2" at 150 lbs. He has a beer belly and did drink on average 3 beers a day up till about a year ago as well. He is however rather muscular. The hospitals ran many, many, many blood tests and didn't seem to find anything there. Restless leg almost seems like a random diagnosis, and no tests were run by the neurologist.

Any advise or good resources would be very appreciated! I do not speak enough French to be able to talk with his doctors or get information in this area, so if anyone knows an English speaking neurologist or information in the city of Quebec, it would be greatly appreciated. We're at the end of our rope here, and the hospital is over an hour away by bus as well.

Thank you,

Kirsten Reis