ALS fear taking over.

[SJM94]

Hi everyone ! I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I have been lurking for about six months to a year now and it this site really has helped me a lot but I felt it was time I made an account !

So anyway without making this too much of a ramble I have just tuned 20 and have been dealing with health anxiety on and off since about the age of 11 but the last year and half it has been it's worst. Every couple of weeks I've believed I had or discovered something new mainly some form of cancer and quite often a brain tumor but for the past month it has been ALS and have honestly never been this scared in my whole life, currently as I am writing this I am in full blown panic mode crying my eyes out.

It started off one night about a month ago and I had a twitch in my right calf muscle and me being a typical health anxiety sufferer went straight to dr google and discovered this awful and scary disease. and since then I have muscle twitches most days ! mainly in my right calf but in other places aswell. They mainly happen when sitting still. I am a musical theatre student so I am always dancing, currently majoring in dance and I have had no weakness and I feel my actual muscles are working perfectly fine (I keep telling myself this is a good thing !) I'm also going round doing all them famous strength and reflex tests, making myself look a right idiot ! however so far no problem with them. But one thing I have noticed is my right claf muscle (the one with the twitching) is slightly more bulky than my left, my mum who is at her wits end with me and my HA tells me this is in my head and I'm being silly, I've made her feel and look at them a few times the past couple of weeks and she says she can't see or feel a difference but I think I can, and they look different in pictures I have taken on my laptop However I don't know if this could be a side effect of fallen arches in both my feet with my right being the stronger foot.

Anyway I am at breaking point now, I want to go to the doctors but I'm so afraid of going and I pretty much have a panic attack every time I'm there ! I just want to live a normal care and worry free life like the rest of my friends but it's hard to do that when I keep convincing myself I am dying :'( I feel so selfish and stupid because there are people who are suffering with this awful disease but I can't help thinking or feeling like this !

If you have read this thank you so much and I am sorry it's so long ! its sometimes helps just to get things off my chest ! if anyone has any info or advice that would be amazing !

[Worried 24/7]

I suffer from thinking I have every disease under the sun...I just cycle through them throughout the week....I don't have much advice, but know that I'm in the same boat and you're not alone. What I can say is at twenty years old, typically it's nit likely you'll get some crazy debilitating disease

[stressaholic]

Hi,

I am experiencing the random muscle spasms and twitches are you are so I know it can be very scary. Don't get overwhelmed and caught up in a diagnosis that you found on the internet. I like to make the joke that if you type any symptom - say coughing - into WebMD or another health website, you're dying. We are intelligent human beings and know this is not true nor reality.

I am going to assume that everything you are feeling is due to your anxiety. I have been there, I am still there and I know. Anxiety will often manifest physical symptoms that lead us to believe we have some life threatening disease. It's the loop. My disease of choice is MS. But from what I know of ALS it is a disease will very specific symptomatic criteria. Just because google says you have it because your leg twitches does not mean you do.

Stop researching symptoms on the internet; it is not going to help you and will only make things worse. If going to the doctor will but your mind at ease, then go see you GP. I can guarantee he or she is going to tell you you do NOT have ALS.

Try and refrain from consulting the almightly google and focus on ways to relieve your anxiety like exercise and a healthy lifestyle. Worrying never helped anyone. Good luck.

[SJM94]

Now thinking rationally I am pretty sure it is anxiety because I went out all day yesterday and today and I didn't feel a thing until I started to think about, so I am now in the process of trying to distract myself as much as possible to stop my mind wondering to places I don't want it to.

Thank you so much for your responses it meant the world to me and helped me calm down so much !

[Serenity1990]

As much as nobody on here can diagnose you with anything, I can say with confidence you don't have ALS.

Firstly you're too young. Secondly, the twitches in ALS are motor neurones dying: you would have obvious clinical weakness before the twitches happen, and that weakness would be permanent. Thirdly with ALS it is completely impossible for twitches to move around.

When anxiety manifests physically in this way (call it conversion disorder, BFS, somatoform, I'm not sure there's a difference) what's basically happening is your nervous system has become chronically over active and exhausted. You've had so much adrenaline running through your body for so long it's been constantly on overdrive. When this happens the only real cure is to stay away from google (that'll just suggest it's other horrible things causing the symptoms and push you over the edge your body is telling you you're teetering on), relax for a few months, and accept the symptoms for what they are: anxiety.

Your body is sending you a signal, that signal being it needs a bloody good rest from feeling anxious. Listen to it or believe me it'll stop being so subtle!