Twitiching

[AcroSplat]

If your Dr says Anxiety then say to him: '' Ok, then treat me for it''!!

It's not nice to have someone tell you yeah it's anxiety go home.

He is a Dr, so try and treat the anxiety and if it does not improve then your Dr will know what to do next.

Just make sure you get treated for anxiety.

Also the twitches you are talking about are sooo normal for anxiety.

I thought I had ms at one stage but really what are the chances of actually having a moto neuron disease??? really slim!!

Ignore the twitching but scream at your Dr to treat you for anxiety.

Well he did give me a script for "Mianserin Hydrochloride Tablet"
But i looked up the side effects and it said twitching, so i thought how would i know if the medication was working if i kept getting twitching.

Im not too keen in taking medication anyway

[joyce1980]

Well he did give me a script for "Mianserin Hydrochloride Tablet"
But i looked up the side effects and it said twitching, so i thought how would i know if the medication was working if i kept getting twitching.

Im not too keen in taking medication anyway

it doesn't hurt to try, give it a month and even then you may need to try a few to find one that suits you, anti d's have such a bad rep, everyone thinks you take them and then you go numb and start drooling or something

my paroxetine has loads of side affect warnings in the leaflet but i have not had any except for an upset tummy and that went away after a week of use.

[veebee]

mind over matter...I guess i mean trying to understand what the physical stuff might actually really mean. so instead of thinking 'this feeling/symptom means that I have this (ie some neurological disease)' I would try to to instead think (using what I have already been told by doc/neuro) that symtom x is yet another symptom of anxiety disorder. so i suppose I mean trying to be rational about the situation instead of panicking and jumping to conclusions (does this make sense??!!)

[itoldyouiwasill]

mind over matter...I guess i mean trying to understand what the physical stuff might actually really mean. so instead of thinking 'this feeling/symptom means that I have this (ie some neurological disease)' I would try to to instead think (using what I have already been told by doc/neuro) that symtom x is yet another symptom of anxiety disorder. so i suppose I mean trying to be rational about the situation instead of panicking and jumping to conclusions (does this make sense??!!)

Yes, it does indeed make sense.

My anxiety never manifested itself in the 'traditional' sense of panic attacks and palps etc. I had quite a severe stressor (health related) a year ago and was convinced I was going to die, this scare was quickly resolved and in the space of a week to 10 days I went from sheer terror that I was going to die to unmitigated relief that I was fine.

Exactly one week after I had the all clear I woke in the morning to feeling completly spaced out and dizzy, this lasted for about 6 weeks and disapeared to be replaced by the muscle aches and cramps, twitching, internal vibrating & buzzing sensation, aching joints, percieved weakness etc etc.

As I have looked into what anxiety actually is and how it effects us, I quickly came to see that we often think that is strikes out of the blue, one day we are fine and the next BAM it all starts...I looked back over my life and came to realise that I had actually suffered from depression, GAD and OCD pretty much all my life but had self medicated on things such as junk food, compulsive shopping amongst other things, it dawned on me my 'breakdown' was inevitable and had actually crept up on me over 20 years...that final stressor was the straw that broke the camels back and was the final anxiety overload that withdrew the last of my overdraft from my anxiety bank....I have an awful lot to pay back!!

What I had to counter first of all was two contradictions that bugged the hell out of me. The first of these was, how was this anxiety?...no panic attacks or palps just these strange and weird sensations, nope, my mind was screaming at me, this is MS or ALS or Lupus or Parkinsons etc etc and YOU need to do something about it now. As I started to research the subject it became obvious that many people actually experience anxiety purely on the physical and often nervous system level, these are the people who have pushed the nervous system to breaking point with anxiety and have screwed up the anxiety regulator, this can take years to do and you do not even notice it until you go into the red and then the fun and games begin. My anxiety was health anxiety in that I was totally fixated on these sensations and interpreted them as MS or ALS. What I then realised was that once anxiety had effected the nervous system the sensations produced would actually mirror the symptoms of a neurological condition as it was effecting the same neural pathways....the huge difference being is that the symptoms of ALS/MS etc where generated by an organic illness whilst the sensations of anxiety originated from the mind and where then converted into the body.

What I believe is a huge stumbling block and what was my second concern was, why the hell is my GP telling me that this is anxiety when I'm not anxious?? Once again, when I realised as to how anxiety effects the body this made perfect sense to me. I use this example....if I ate junk food for 20 years I would be overweight, unfit and feeling pretty rubbish..if I then went on a diet, I would no longer be eating junk food, I would be eating fruit and vegetables, one part of the equation has changed BUT, I would still be overweight....just because I had changed what I was eating this doesn't mean I would be slim, healthy and feeling fantastic, I would have 20 years of bad eating habits to make up for and the weight would take a while to shift....ever been on a diet?? ever noticed how frustrating and annoying it is that even though you are eating well the weight falls off slowly?? Well, you can apply that to anxiety and those physical sensations, those sensations are the accumulation of bad anxiety management and once you switch to good anxiety management you cannot expect them to just disappear....anxiety has actually had a physical effect on your CNS and it can take an awfully long time for this to be reset. It doesn't take a professor to work out that the more accepting and relaxed we are during this period then the quicker our recovery will be. Every time we interpret a twitch as ALS or an internal buzz as MS we kick off our fight or flight responce again and even though we don't actually feel this mentally our bodie will produce more and more sensations....welcome to the wonderful loop of the health anxiety sufferer.

What is working for me is recognising the link between our minds and our bodies. I strongly believe that many anxiety sufferers start to develop anxiety disorders due to emotional issues that become buried deep in our minds. Our minds do not want us to face these issues and will do all it can to move our focus away form the mind and our regressed emotions and onto the physical and our bodies....once we start focusing on our bodies to the extent that health anxiety allows our minds realise that they are onto a winner and will produce more and more of these sensations as they are having the desired effect...in essense, this is the golden rule of how to overcome health anxiety:

DO NOT BE FOOLED INTO THINKING THAT THE PROBLEM RESIDES IN THE PHYSICAL. THE PHYSICAL IS A SMOKESCREEN AND ALL THE WHILE WE THINK THAT WE ARE ORGANICALLY ILL WE ARE CHASING OUR TAILS AND MOVING FURTHER AND FURTHER AWAY FROM RECOVERY.

Sorry, for the capitals but I believe that to accept this point is crucial.

Once we are stricken with anxiety and in particular health anxiety we actually become the biggest self fulfilling prophecies going...we become victims firstly and then we research the diseases we fear and start to somatise the symptoms of these diseases. We become quite vile and selfish individuals so focused and self absorbed on our selves that for all intents and purposes and the world ends with our skin and bones...we scan ourselves and repeat negative mantras to ourselves, the life of a health anxiety sufferer is best described as getting up in the morning and then hoping and praying that we can clamber into the safety of the same bed at the end of the day whilst ensuring that we are challenged, stretched and hurt etc as little as possible throughout that day....we are in limbo, we are victims, waiting for that glorious day when all the sensations stop and when we can start living and start being happy once again.

Of course, that day is never going to come whilst we keep repeating the same patterns over and over day in day out, week in week out, month in month out....you get the picture! It is exactly this automatic, learned response that got us into the loop in the first place and it is the perpetuation of this that will keep us enslaved.

At some point, we all need to make a leap of faith and this is really the only way to escape....I am not going to add anything more from this point as you are either going to do it or are going to convince yourself that glorious day will come whilst the days and weeks turn into months and years.

Good luck.

[AcroSplat]

Exactly one week after I had the all clear I woke in the morning to feeling completly spaced out and dizzy, this lasted for about 6 weeks and disapeared to be replaced by the muscle aches and cramps, twitching, internal vibrating & buzzing sensation, aching joints, percieved weakness etc etc.

So i assume you have been to doctors and/or a neuro who have actually told you its Anxiety. And in the past year, nothing has actually got worse?

[AcroSplat]

I was just googling to find the medical term name for Muscle Twitching, as my Dr used some word called Magila or something like that, anyway i found the following article that has made me feel more relaxed, and it might do the same for others too.

Do you have twitching muscles? Does muscle twitching scare you into thinking you might have ALS or multiple sclerosis? After all, muscle twitching can be a symptom of ALS, but save the panic attack because in ALS, muscle twitching is also accompanied by muscle weakness, and unexplained lack of muscle tone (muscle atrophy). And by muscle weakness, I do not mean struggling to hoist a heavy garbage bag; or muscle weakness in that the left arm is sagging a bit while you are struggling with that grueling chest exercise or arm exercises.

ALS muscle weakness is one day, you can't lift the hairdryer up. Or your foot gives out on you when going down the stairs and you fall. And there's usually muscle pain in the form of muscle cramps.


Im just wondering, what does muscle pain in the form of muscle cramps mean?

[itoldyouiwasill]

I was just googling to find the medical term name for Muscle Twitching, as my Dr used some word called Magila or something like that, anyway i found the following article that has made me feel more relaxed, and it might do the same for others too.

Do you have twitching muscles? Does muscle twitching scare you into thinking you might have ALS or multiple sclerosis? After all, muscle twitching can be a symptom of ALS, but save the panic attack because in ALS, muscle twitching is also accompanied by muscle weakness, and unexplained lack of muscle tone (muscle atrophy). And by muscle weakness, I do not mean struggling to hoist a heavy garbage bag; or muscle weakness in that the left arm is sagging a bit while you are struggling with that grueling chest exercise or arm exercises.

ALS muscle weakness is one day, you can't lift the hairdryer up. Or your foot gives out on you when going down the stairs and you fall. And there's usually muscle pain in the form of muscle cramps.


Im just wondering, what does muscle pain in the form of muscle cramps mean?

So, you read something on the net that has scared you and then you read something that has reassured you....why not just resolve to avoid looking at the medical stuff altogether.

In reply to your questions. Yes, I have seen various GP's over the last year and everyone has diagnosed me with anxiety....the thing is though I didn't really a GP to tell me that, as I mentioned once I looked into anxiety it became startling obvious to me that I had had various anxiety issues for years. I saw a neurologist in January who also advised me that my sensations where likely to be somatic and based in anxiety, he ruled out ALS and MS based on the clinical tests and advised me that he would not need to refer me for an EMG/MRI as there was zero reason to do so.

One of the last GP's I saw mentioned conditions that exist alongside anxiety disorders, stuff like Fibro, CFS, BFS etc etc...the thing is though all these things are somatic in nature and are treated by the same meds that are chucked at you for anxiety/depression.

I am aware that twitching (fasculations) are a late symptom of ALS/MND because for 2 months at the end of last year I was totally obsessed by the disease and totally convinced I had it....I had the buzzing, twitching and cramping etc and thought that this is what ALS was. I soon discovered that loads of anxiety sufferers had the same concerns with MS and ALS and there had to be a reason for this...as I mentioned this is because ALS, MS and the physical effects of stress/anxiety effect the same parts of the body. If you equate twitching with ALS you may as well equate every single headache as an inoperable brain tumour!

As I became more knowledgable of anxiety and its effects I researched MS and ALS in order to understand why people with health anxiety get so caught up in worrying about these diseases. With ALS/MND you are dealing with a disease that is defined by clinical and objective weakness, it is not defined by fasculations, subjective weakness or aching muscles...most neuro's will tell you that they can pick up ALS in a sufferer literally as soon as they walk into a consulting room as it is so obvious. The twitching we tend to get as anxiety sufferers is normally in specific hotspots or all over, with ALS a muscle will twitch as it dies and by this time the muscle would have significant wastage and objective weakness. ALS twitching is something that occurs in the late stages of the disease and only (if at all) in the dieing muscles...this progesses through the body so all over twitching/jerking is obviously not indicative of ALS as the disease just does not progress that way.

When I look back to my ALS terror I still struggle to see how I got so caught up in it and also I'm surprised how common it is for health anxiety sufferers to fixate on it....with ALS it is hugley obvious that something serious is amiss and as a few months go by and you still twitch but have no weakness etc there is really zero logical reason to even consider ALS. I totally understand the MS worry as this is a totally different thing which is much harder to pindown, define and even diagnose but that is a different story.

Bottom line, do not equate twitching, muscle cramps, aches or buzzing with ALS, this information is out of date and just plain wrong....ALS is not sensory so any sensory stuff going on rules out ALS immediaty and all this points to the physical effects of anxiety on the nervous system. Hope this info helps.