Another ALS fear

[worryman311]

I know this is a common fear, but it's such a terrible disease. I am a 23 year old male. It started in January 2015 when my legs felt sluggish. A few days later the twitching started. This hasn't let up. I know anxiety does not help, but this did NOT start from anxiety. The anxiety followed. I passed my clinical and EMG was clean with fascics but I can't relax. My neck hurts everyday and gives me pains in my head all the time. I worry that chemicals from frequent use of cosmetic products has given me some sort of CNS damage. My legs seem to always feel sluggish/awkward. I don't know how long is enough to be convinced that I'm not dying from that horrible disease.

---------- Post added at 11:38 ---------- Previous post was at 10:55 ----------

And the twitches tend to be in my feet and ankles, even though they can happen anywhere. Really scares me.

[missykat]

From my experience, too much focus on a certain body part like your legs in your case can lead to symptoms, even tho they aren't real! U bring them on and start to believe it's real . I've been there. Trust me doubt u have anything to worry about. You are young. Also. Why worry about something u just cannot control? Worrying isn't going to change any outcome. X

[popejoan]

I understand your health anxiety but I don't understand why you're worried about ALS. You don't have ANY symptoms of ALS and you had a clean EMG. Clean EMG means you don't have ALS, you could never passed it otherwise. Also ALS is not about feeling it is about failing. If you have foot drop all of a sudden and cannot lift your foot from ankle again, that might be ALS but there is no ALS patient whose symptoms started with a FEELING. They just failed to do something one day and it got progressively worse.

ALS doesn't present itself with pain as well. Neck pain is possibly caused by anxiety, bad posture or a bad pillow. Everybody twitches, if you had anything sinister going on EMG would have caught it.

I know how scary ALS is because I have been there. I was you. I started CBT, I started taking beta blockers and anti depressants and now I am feeling much better. I advice you to do the same. You do not have ALS and I am 100% sure of that.