18 Year old worried about having ALS or something else serious

[BD]

Hi. About 2 to 3 days ago i felt a muscle spasn in my left foot and a few minutes later my left ankle became sore. the pain later that day spread to my calf and for the rest of the day it was slightly sore. now today the pain continued, but both my ankles feel sort of weak. i can still walk just fine but its like a dull tingling sensation all the time. Im concerned the spasm signaled ALS or something. my dad last night told me id feel weak, not pain if i had ALS and now i feel weak, am i just a hypochondriac or should I be worried? ive recently (past week) had several health concerns starting with a uti i thought was syphilis (even though im a virgin). as an 18 year old i know my odds of having ALS are extremely slim, but just knowing it can happen is scary. please help and thank you so much!

[nomorepanic]

Have a read of this:


http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=196071

[melfish]

Neither pain nor tingling are ALS symptoms. It's a disease of the motor neurons, not the sensory ones

[BD]

So i wouldnt be able to feel anything different if i had it?

[ServerError]

If you had ALS, you would be unable to move the affected body part. It would just fail. And this would spread gradually through the body. You'd notice significant weakness in the limbs. And your muscles would begin to lose mass. If you can still walk and move around as normal, you don't have ALS.

[Fishmanpa]

From the link Nic posted. I suggest you read it.

Positive thoughts



Clinical Weakness—ALS is about failing, not feeling.

ALS is about failure—falling down, being unable to stand on your toes, being unable to button your shirt, being unable to lift your hand, etc. It is not about these things becoming more difficult. It is about these things being impossible… no matter how hard you try. If you can do normal things, but it is more difficult, you do not have ALS. If you used to be able to do 100 curls and now one arm can only do 50; that is not ALS. If you used to run 2 miles and now you can only run 1; that is not ALS. If you used to run 2 miles and now you can’t lift up one of your feet, you may have clinical weakness.
It really does happen that something stops working all of a sudden. It is generally one muscle so it will not be a whole limb but the movement done by that muscle is suddenly gone. An example is a calf raise. It won't happen. Think of it like your wifi signal. You are surfing the net, then signal is lost and you can't do anything online no matter how hard you try or how long you wait for a page to load. This is what happens to a muscle in beginning ALS it has lost the signal from the nervous system that tells it to work