Dear Dr. Meyer, I am a 29-year-old male, employed as a full-time researcher in the sciences. For a couple of years, I have noticed tingling in my fingers. (I wouldn t call it numbness.) There is no tingling in my feet, but sometimes I have a light tingling in my cheeks. I have also had brief dizzy spells off and on for a year and a half, but nothing dehabilitating. (The dizziness was assessed by my family physician at the time to be a complication associated with wax build up in the ears.) In June of this year, I had a 3-5 day period where I had a red, itchy eye combined with a more intense tingling in the cheek below the eye. At the time I had dismissed it as a possible sunburn, as we were having a hot sunny spell, or as an extension of my eczema (which occurs usually on my hands but also sometimes elsewhere). For the past 6-8 months, I have also had what might be called retrobulbar pain emanating from my left eye, especially when I move it to peripheral. The pain extends into the forehead and neighbouring temple. There is no apparent loss of vision or change in the quality of vision, although it is hard to assess qualitatively as I have always had bad astigmatism in that eye. I am guessing this is optic neurosis. My own research has produced several possible causes: -stress -general fatigue -a mild herpetic infection of the eye (with lingering inflammatory effects; the red eye in June could have been a conjuctivital flare-up of such an infection) -side effects of irritable bowel syndome (more than one research source indicates that there is a link between irritable bowl syndome and acute optic neurosis) -bruxism: I am a teeth clencher (it happens involuntarily at night) which could cause pain radiating through the skull, and is known to cause eye pain -a jaw positioning disorder: I suffered a blow to the jaw during a soccer match 4.5 years ago, which in a manner similar to bruxism can cause some of the symptoms I have been experiencing -type-2 diabetes -MS The latter two disorders are the ones that encompass more of the symptoms I have been experiencing, in particular the numbness. Can I please have your opinion on the matter? I am certainly aware that (a) a combination of symptoms can have different causes rather than a single cause, and (b) the discovery of these causes can take a lengthy period of evaluation. Still, I would appreciate the opinion of an expert on what I have written here. Thank you.