Scared of ALS, losing it.
So... this is mi story, so far I seem to be ok, but I don't feel ok.
Everything started... like when I was twelve years old.
I am a 22 years old male.
I have suffered from anxiety my whole life. I used to chew my fingers and make them bleed, I've been doing that since I was a kid. Then, in my teenage years I started getting depression. Bad depression that's never really left, I have just learned to live with it.
So, when I was like 19 years old I had uprotected sex with my girlfriend, I got a yeast infection, something simple i just needed some cream I they ran some blood tests on me to check if I was fine. Everything was normal but the whole experience was SO traumatic that since then I've been suffering from bad health anxiety. After that I got whats called lichen schlerosus in my foreskin. A quite common condition after having yeast. So I had to get a circumcision. That was last year.
Now, this year I finished college in january. I've been looking for a job for a whole year and nothing. I've been in my house for a year, I dont go out much, don't have money to do anything. Plus there's been a couple situations with girls that have made me ultra anxious more tan ever in the last 6 months.
So one day six months ago I was pouring sugar into my coffee when I noticed a tremor in my left wrist movement, some days it was good, some days it was awful. I am left handed but only for hand writing and I NEVER hand write at all. I dont use my left arm much, I actually dont use my arms at all because im here at my house the whole day so I don't need to do anything that requires a lot of effort just the normal cooking and dressing. But I use my right arm for almost everything and I have more tone and muscle on that arm and on the right pect too. Its always been like that and I never cared.
Since I noticed the tremor in my wrist my mind started fixating on the feelings of my arm. So I started feeling weakness and tiredness in my arm at all times. I noticed other tremors in other movements that I had never noticed and I started panicking horribly. I went to my GP and told him about my tremors. He did some strenght tests and said I was fine. He sent me to physiotherapy for strenghtening my arm. I never went to it.
Months kept passing and I kept feeling my arm tired and noticed the tremors but nothing else. That freaked me out and augmented my anxiety levels horribly. Plus, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge started and before that I had never Heard of ALS but after I found out what it was, then my arm weakness and tiredness started making sense... horribly. But I still didnt wanna go to a neuro, I still thought it was all in my mind and that once I got a job it would go away.
Then, one day I came home from a dinner with a friend. I sat in my computer to check Facebook. And then I started noticing it. Several twitches around all the muscles of my body. I didnt really pay attention to it. Next day I woke up, took a shower, did everything as normal and then sat at my computer, after what was maybe half an hour I noticed the twitches, all over the place. I was stupid enough to check on Dr. Google and BAM, MS, ALS, and all sorts of bad things, these twitches, or fasciculations, could be a sign of something BAD, really bad. And I freaked out even worse, called my mom on tears, then I got a neuro appointment for a week later. It was the start of the worse month of my life.
So, that week passed, I twitched all the time whenever I tried to relax, my life kinda went in a pause state cause I couldn't do ANYTHING that needed me to be sitting still. Cause whenever I relaxed the twitches would come and I would get horrible ideas. Actually I would get all sorts of horrible ideas at all times. We even went to a Disney on Ice show and through all the show all I could do was cry, thinking I could never practice Ice Skating or anything at all. Thinking of all the things I was not going to be able to do. My life was over. I couldnt sit on my computer to see my favorite youtubers, or play my favorite video games. It was horrible.
Before my neuro appointment, like 5 days before. My mom talked me into going to the gym for the first time in my life. I went. The trainer there made me lift 12lbs weights in what felt like a lot of series and didnt really instruct me to stretch or warm my muscles. So two days later I couldn't really bend my arms past 90 degrees and for the worst, the next day I got tendonitis on my left elbow and shoulder, just in the arm that I was feeling bad about, now it was worst because my right arm took like week and a half to recover while my left arm took almost a month because of the tendonitis.
Then I had my neuro appointment, as son as I mentioned fasciculations he started talking about ALS and how horrible it was and how he had seen that disease many times. But he said he was 99.9999% sure I was ok. He told me it was probably anxiety but sent me a thiroydal and hepatical blood tests and full 4 limbs EMG and neuroconduction test. So I got out of his office almost in tears. I knew a normal person would've been more positive after that appointment but I felt utterly destroyed. I booked my tests for the next week and that week passed the same. I cried everyday. I couldnt get sleep, etc, etc.
So, two weeks forward, I get the blood tests results, all normal, and then I get the EMG and neuroconduction tests. The physiologist who took them asked me a lot of questions. After he was finished he said everything was ok and that I should probably get help from a psychiatrist. The next week I got my neuro to see the results. I went with my mom. He laughed and told me: You see? I told you you were okay, and told my mom he had seen that disease many times and and I definitely dont have it. He has 15 yrs experience and I counted 9 diplomas over his head, three of them were harvard's so... yeah. He said I had hypochondriasis and prescribed me pills. I dont really know if they were antidepresants or what. I didnt buy them. Next day I saw a psychologist, she said I had slight OCD and some Anxious Depressive Dissorder or smthing like that. So I chilled. I didnt buy the drugs the doctor prescribed me. I still have the tremors, some days better tan others. I still get the twitches, but not nearly as much as when it all began. The only thing that bothers me is my arm. I still feel it tired when doing rather normal things.
Now, I have a theory. When I noticed the tremors on my arm, my mind fixated on it and I started doing everything with that arm. An arm that I didnt use a lot in years. So that's why it feels so tired everytime. Because, unconsciously I have started doing almost everything with that arm, that was used to do almost anything. I started going to the gym. Lifting only 5lbs to start and actually taking a physical conditioning program because I've been extremely sedentary my whole life. I'm a graphic designer so my whole life happens almost entirely in front of my computer. But I still feel my arm tired almost all the time and it still freaks me out like I feel I wanna die of how scared I feel.
This whole situation has sent me down the path of depression again because, the doctor said I'm fine but I don't feel fine. My whole teenage years I thought of suicide and those thoughts have come back again more frequently tan before because I feel like a prisoner of my own mind and I see no escape. This is not a reality I can accept. I don't feel optimal or fullfilled and now I live in fear of my arm. In fear someday I will wake up and won't be able to lift it, or lift something. Some days after gym, my legs hurt and I don't care its that kind of good hurt, and because of that pain I dont even notice my arm. But most days it's just there. Feeling stuff. I hate it.
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