emmegee
02-12-16, 21:01
Hi All-
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this. I'm a newbie to this forum and have suffered from HA my entire life. I'm a 45 year old single mom with two teens and am a high school teacher. My HA seems to have a three year cycle, each time a different disease, symptom etc that I fixate. I slowly takes over my life over the course of a few weeks until I am in the thralls of a complete "anxiety state" that takes months to come down from.
In the past year, I have heard the story of two "friends of a friend" that have been diagnosed with ALS. I know a lot about it because I hyperfocus and research diseases I hear about. Last year, a colleague started showing signs of bulbar ALS. I feared for her but hoped it was something else. I have watched her decline over the past year and a few weeks ago it was announced to our staff that she had a diagnosis of ALS and was not coming back to work. I was immediately very anxious, couldn't stop thinking about it. Made me a bit depressed but could function. That lasted for a week or so and then I started feeling weakness in my left arm. And my thumb and index finger feel "weak" or just strange. (This is perceived weakness, not clinical weakness). This freaked me out. This arm/hand/finger fatigue has lasted for a couple weeks now and I am in full-blown anxiety mode. I also have a very slight dull ache in the whole left arm. I saw my pcp and neurologist (not mentioning ALS but just the arm weakness finger fatigue/loss of dexterity thing.) Both said I was fine. This left arm/hand/finger issue has persisted.
I also made an appt with my therapist and psychiatrist. Started taking klonipin and just started zoloft which I have both used in the past. I have been med-free until this week.
Six years ago I had a spine MRI and it showed mild/moderate disc degeneration, spinal stenosis, disc herniation and foraminal narrowing at C3-C6. No nerve impingement was shown. I mentioned that maybe this might be giving me problems now, and my neuro said he didn't think so. I also mentioned that maybe anxiety or stress could be affecting those discs and the nerves around them. He didn't think so. I also have a lot of left hand falling asleep episodes and have thought for years that my circulation is not great. I thought maybe some radial nerve impingement somewhere (wrist/elbow). Neuro doesnt think so, but will do NCV and EMG test to be sure in a couple weeks. The feelings I'm having in the left hand and arm are overall slight and when I get my mind off it I don't notice it much. But it has persisted. My irrational anxiety self has convinced myself that I have the early stages of ALS (before clinical weakness begins). I know it is crazy, but I just can't seem to shake it and it comes back and invades my mind most of the day. Its to the point that I can't really enjoy anything and am pretty unhappy all the time. Going through the motions. Getting through the day. I'm taking the klonopin sporadically but thinking I should do a maintenance/preventative dose until I get through this. (Im afraid of getting addicted.)
Any thoughts are appreciated. I have read many of the posts/stickies on MS/ALS fears and they are great...can't seem to get myself out of this rabbit hole though.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this. I'm a newbie to this forum and have suffered from HA my entire life. I'm a 45 year old single mom with two teens and am a high school teacher. My HA seems to have a three year cycle, each time a different disease, symptom etc that I fixate. I slowly takes over my life over the course of a few weeks until I am in the thralls of a complete "anxiety state" that takes months to come down from.
In the past year, I have heard the story of two "friends of a friend" that have been diagnosed with ALS. I know a lot about it because I hyperfocus and research diseases I hear about. Last year, a colleague started showing signs of bulbar ALS. I feared for her but hoped it was something else. I have watched her decline over the past year and a few weeks ago it was announced to our staff that she had a diagnosis of ALS and was not coming back to work. I was immediately very anxious, couldn't stop thinking about it. Made me a bit depressed but could function. That lasted for a week or so and then I started feeling weakness in my left arm. And my thumb and index finger feel "weak" or just strange. (This is perceived weakness, not clinical weakness). This freaked me out. This arm/hand/finger fatigue has lasted for a couple weeks now and I am in full-blown anxiety mode. I also have a very slight dull ache in the whole left arm. I saw my pcp and neurologist (not mentioning ALS but just the arm weakness finger fatigue/loss of dexterity thing.) Both said I was fine. This left arm/hand/finger issue has persisted.
I also made an appt with my therapist and psychiatrist. Started taking klonipin and just started zoloft which I have both used in the past. I have been med-free until this week.
Six years ago I had a spine MRI and it showed mild/moderate disc degeneration, spinal stenosis, disc herniation and foraminal narrowing at C3-C6. No nerve impingement was shown. I mentioned that maybe this might be giving me problems now, and my neuro said he didn't think so. I also mentioned that maybe anxiety or stress could be affecting those discs and the nerves around them. He didn't think so. I also have a lot of left hand falling asleep episodes and have thought for years that my circulation is not great. I thought maybe some radial nerve impingement somewhere (wrist/elbow). Neuro doesnt think so, but will do NCV and EMG test to be sure in a couple weeks. The feelings I'm having in the left hand and arm are overall slight and when I get my mind off it I don't notice it much. But it has persisted. My irrational anxiety self has convinced myself that I have the early stages of ALS (before clinical weakness begins). I know it is crazy, but I just can't seem to shake it and it comes back and invades my mind most of the day. Its to the point that I can't really enjoy anything and am pretty unhappy all the time. Going through the motions. Getting through the day. I'm taking the klonopin sporadically but thinking I should do a maintenance/preventative dose until I get through this. (Im afraid of getting addicted.)
Any thoughts are appreciated. I have read many of the posts/stickies on MS/ALS fears and they are great...can't seem to get myself out of this rabbit hole though.