Impact of anxiety on your health - ALS fear

[devonbevon]

hi everyone,

I am new to the forum and appreciate any support guidance you can give me.

Essentially I became a mother a couple of years ago and since then I have had a fear of death and dying (particularly because my cousin died of cancer when her children were very young).

After an extremely stressful year, I went to the doctor with fatigue concerns and general aches and pains all over my body. At the time they were particularly noticeable in my underarms and breasts, so of course I become paranoid about breast cancer. After that fear was alleviated, i then worried about leukemia / lymphoma - my general aches and pains continued, plus by then i was losing quite a bit of weight from not eating etc. All this fed my anxiety.

Anyway, during my period of aches and pains, I found my left leg was jerking quite a bit - especially at night when i was lying down. At the time, a friend joked that maybe I had MS and this was the start of my spiral. Since then, I have become aware of a noticeable tremor in both hands (when i hold my hand out or grip things), plus i am getting muscle twitches (largely in right calf but intermittently elsewhere) and my fingers jerk / feet jerk when at rest. I also have an odd pain in my left arm (either side of my elbow) that comes intermittently is quite intense and almost ripping like. I can actually see the muscle twitches as they happen in my right leg.

So here I am. The good news is i am less worried about MS. The bad news is i am now fixated on ALS. I have no clinical weakness or apparent atrophy. But the twitches are there and so are the tremors.

I guess my question to everyone is does this sound typical of BFS onset? Can anxiety trigger and mimic symptoms so similar to ALS / MS? Do any of my health concerns seem worth following up or should I try to push myself through it?

I find it is engulfing me at present. I start feeling like yes this is anxiety, and then the twitches start of i see the tremors and I instantly go back to 'my god i have als and wont see my children grow up' land.

Thanks in advance.

Devonbevon

[iamstrong]

Hi

This is my main fear too. But only because some nutritionist led me falsely to believe that a blood result test I had meant I had a faulty gene that causes it. This turns out not to be true. Or, at least, the test is not related to whether I have that gene or not.

I have two young boys and am trying for a third so I know how you feel when you say you are scared they will grow up without a mother.

I can tell you though that as soon as I found out about als, then I suddenly only then noticed all of these "neuro" symptoms - pins and needles, random twitch in body, mouth feeling funny, pulsating muscles (not sure of medical term) etc

And even now while I type I can feel that I twitched, but I know that is because I am making myself tense as I don't like thinking about als at all.

I mentioned it to a dr over Xmas and he checked out my mouth and looked at me and had no concerns at all. Said I need to relax and maybe wait awhile to have more kids so my anxiety doesn't get worse.

I have also asked several people - friends/family/ personal trainer and most of them have said that they get these same symptoms intermittently but obviously don't think twice about it like we do.

I don't know how old you are but I read that the chances of getting als if you are under 38 is something like 1 in 140000000. The average time it appears is around 65. Don't quote me on this though!

Anxiety will cause all the symptoms you mentioned and more. And like I posted in another thread, it seems that whatever your fear is, then you will experience symptoms related to that. Ie, people scared of cardiac arrest usually experience chest pain. I randomly experience chest pain, but because it isn't my fear, I don't think twice about it.

I am also not sure how old your children are. Mind are 1 and 3 and carrying the , waking up in the night, sleeping with them in bed where you have no space yourself so you like awkwardly, keeping up with their energy. All of that is tiring and a strain on the body. So you will get weird sensations from that.

Btw, I have been relaxed for the past few days, but while typing this I have probably twitched 6-7 times. Shows you the power of the mind.

Please don't worry about this awful disease. It is so rare to catch and everyone gets symptoms like you mention now and then.

Obviously, if you can't stop worrying then see a doctor. They know what it looks like so if they have a concern then they will tell you.

Also read the sticky post at the top of health anxiety called a thread for newcomers worried about ms (it also mentions als)

Hope this helps and that you soon feel better.

[Baggs]

Welcome to the site. I hope you find as much help as I have. I wish you all the best.

Baggs

[xtremx]

Hi Devonbevon, what you have does sound very much like BFS. I went though all this around 2 years ago thinking I had ALS.

I found I was having twitching in my calf muscle in my right leg (looked like the muscles popping) and then it soon started in my left calf. Now 2 years on it is constant in both calf muscles and other areas on the body.


I spent 6 months of my life in dreaded fear of ALS I even to the pro caution of writing letters to my loved one to say sorry for my past mis deads and I was making plans to leave the family home as not I be a burden on my wife and kids! Glad I didn't as with having the major worry of ALS lead me to learn abit more about it and learn that as you have said NO muscle loss, NO weakness points to NO ALS (to put it is plan English).


I found the more I looked for symptoms the more I found them ie I looked for muscle twitching and atrophy in the tongue I found it. I was measuring my calf muscles daily and yes it seemed like they were getting smaller (my miss informed mind thought that was atrophy) thinking that's how muscle wastage occurred.


I too get twitching in my left elbow and sometimes that is painfull but that is nothing more than a trapped nerve (have had a emg done on that arm).


Anyway that all started 2 years ago and I still here! And I know understand it is just something I have to live with.


Try putting it to the back of you mind and accept it for being BFS and nothin more.


I sorry for the poor spelling and grammar my laptop is in for repair so using my iPhone (screen to small for me)

[cattia]

Hello and welcome to the site! I can relate totally to your story. I have struggled with anxiety most of my life but since having my two children (my eldest is 3) my anxiety has been horrendous. I have also been through severe MS and ALS fears and had persistent twitches all over my body. I had senssatuons in ky leg like it felt wet all the time in a particular place. I had feelings of weakness. I started waking up in the night with phantom smells and was convinced I had a brain tumour.
My fears have morphed from one thing to the next. At one point I was convinced that I had leukaemia. I would look at pictures of my kids and just cry thinking about how they wouldn't know me as they grew up. Lately my fears have altered to revolve around my 20 month old son. I am convinced he is hoing to turn out to be autistic because of certain things he does, even though he is very social, xomminuicative and talks all the time. This fear consumes me and I worry about it all the time and am constantly analysing his behaviour and panicking about it. It's so exhausting and stressful, it's a cycle that's very hard to break. I think having children definitely compounds anxiety.

[nj]

ALS was one of my first, and BIGGEST, battles with HA. I learned more about this dreadful disease than anyone other than a doctor should know.

Don't fear the twitch! From what I was told, muscles start to twitch when they near the end of dying. Most ALS patients don't even know they are twitching.

Twitching also doesn't jump all over the body. It would be pretty localized and once it starts, it never stops.

Anxiety can also be a HUGE contributor to twitching.

[Anxious lu]

Hey hun,

Seems like loads of us have had the same fears.. I too have been scared of ms and ALS.. More ms as ALS is more weakness and extremely rare apparently..

I too get muscle twitches and popping all over my body, I get random pins and needles in my toes and othe parts of the body. I got pins an needles quite Badly in both hands the other day. As I wrote this mt calf twitches. Yesterday my whole left rm ached.. My eye just twitched btw..

These are all sooooooo scary but I think we are okay. I know that as a mum your scared you will leave your child just try to make the most of your time with them in there early years..

These symptoms must be anxiety too many of us experience th for us all to have ms or ALS x

[devonbevon]

Thanks for the warm welcome and for opening up to me about your similar fears. Being a mum seems to trigger all sorts of new worries! Like some of you I often worry about my kids health too.

Since I wrote I've been back to the doctor. She noted my brisk reflexes and also said she hasn't seen anxiety present it's way like this before. Which of course wasn't the best thing to hear. So twitches, tremors and brisk reflexes. I don't like this xx

---------- Post added at 09:16 ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 ----------

About to turn 40 which doesn't help lol

[Goldie1]

Hi there, well, turning 40 is a big thing only if you let it be, don't dwell on it too much, I'm 44...I try not to think about age.
I too suffer with anxiety, I worry about my health and the health of my childre, my husband, my parents, the list goes on...
I'm comforted a little though to know I'm not on my own and many of the symptoms I suffer with also affect others.
My anxiety at the moment is worrying about norovirus, I'm terrified of any of us getting it, I'm dreding going back to work/school next week, the stupid thing is, is that I've waisted most of the Christmas holidays worring about it, I feel exhausted, have palpitations, twitches in my face muscles, have nausea, headaches. I know they are all because of my anxiety as when I calm down and try and relax they fade.
I so wish I could make it all stop and just be "normal!"
Right, I'm going to try and have a GOOD day today!!
Hope you do too x

[Roxy79]

hi,
do you think it could be side effects from your meds (if your on any) that could be causing these symptoms?
x