umdelisl
26-01-18, 12:28
I am a 32 year old Mother of two beautiful boys, 9 months and 2.5 years old. In my 20’s, I never even wanted children, and now being a Mother is everything to me... The fear of not being there for my children is almost crippling some days, and I quite often tear up putting them to bed as I’m terrified of being diagnosed with ALS.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I was woken up in my sleep by my left hamstring twitching. I thought it should have a simple enough solution, so I googled it. Of course ALS comes up, and the terror begins. My twitching has not subsided over the past 6 weeks, and has settled into pretty much constant fine twitching in both calves and the arches of my feet (as well as some sporadic twitching over the rest of my body). On the first visit to my family Doctor, she ran some tests to check for mineral imbalances and any bloodwork anomalies, and they all came back normal. She said she had numerous patients with muscle twitching, and none had ever gone on to develop ALS, but it was possible (cur panic!). I went home and struggled through another week of panic, and went back to see her. She decided to order an EMG, as she said it would be the only way to put my mind at rest, as I obviously have diagnosed myself with ALS after being on Dr. Google.
The EMG has been scheduled for Feb. 20th, and is still almost 4 weeks away. Over the past 6 weeks I feel like I’ve completely spiralled out of control. I’ve measured my calf size (my dominant is 2.5 cm less than my non-dominant, which my Doc said was within the normal range), I’ve attempted to check my patella reflexes which seem very brisk to hyper-reflexive, and I am constantly walking on my toes and heals, doing push-ups etc...
I’ve started to see a therapist, but I’m only 2 sessions in right now, and he hasn’t given me any coping methods yet.
To make matters worse, my feet have been starting to cramp which scares me even more, as that’s yet another early sign of ALS.
I don’t know how to survive the next 5 or so weeks until the test results come back. I can’t bring myself to go back to the Doctor, because I could tell by her tone she thinks I’m blowing this out of proportion, and if I wait it out, the muscle twitches will go away. My gut is telling me something serious is not right, and I am just so scared...
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I was woken up in my sleep by my left hamstring twitching. I thought it should have a simple enough solution, so I googled it. Of course ALS comes up, and the terror begins. My twitching has not subsided over the past 6 weeks, and has settled into pretty much constant fine twitching in both calves and the arches of my feet (as well as some sporadic twitching over the rest of my body). On the first visit to my family Doctor, she ran some tests to check for mineral imbalances and any bloodwork anomalies, and they all came back normal. She said she had numerous patients with muscle twitching, and none had ever gone on to develop ALS, but it was possible (cur panic!). I went home and struggled through another week of panic, and went back to see her. She decided to order an EMG, as she said it would be the only way to put my mind at rest, as I obviously have diagnosed myself with ALS after being on Dr. Google.
The EMG has been scheduled for Feb. 20th, and is still almost 4 weeks away. Over the past 6 weeks I feel like I’ve completely spiralled out of control. I’ve measured my calf size (my dominant is 2.5 cm less than my non-dominant, which my Doc said was within the normal range), I’ve attempted to check my patella reflexes which seem very brisk to hyper-reflexive, and I am constantly walking on my toes and heals, doing push-ups etc...
I’ve started to see a therapist, but I’m only 2 sessions in right now, and he hasn’t given me any coping methods yet.
To make matters worse, my feet have been starting to cramp which scares me even more, as that’s yet another early sign of ALS.
I don’t know how to survive the next 5 or so weeks until the test results come back. I can’t bring myself to go back to the Doctor, because I could tell by her tone she thinks I’m blowing this out of proportion, and if I wait it out, the muscle twitches will go away. My gut is telling me something serious is not right, and I am just so scared...