Still worried about ALS

[2anxious4this]

Some background: I am a 21 year old white male. Ive dealt with health anxiety, generalized anxiety, and depression for years.

Im worried about ALS because 2 weeks ago I got a cramp/ sharp pain in my calf which lasted about 10-15 minutes until I ate something at which it seemed to have gone away for the most part. I panicked and remembered cramping is a sign of ALS. Since then, my right leg has felt tight. It feels worse when Im extremely anxious as well. To make matters worse, my toes on my right foot twitch. The ones on my left foot twitch, but it seems as if my right one twitches more.

I went to the doctor a week ago and he put me back on lexapro, which I had been off for two months. He told me its stress and anxiety related. He said if its still an issue after 3 weeks, that he will order bloodwork and an EMG. Its been a week since that doctors visit and my leg hasn't gotten much better, and so I am extremely worried.

Sometimes I get little aches in my right leg, but nothing too painful. Most of the twitching and weird feelings seems to be in the right foot/calf/thigh. I don't have any weakness, I ran 3 miles yesterday.

Any advice or help is appreciated.

[Fishmanpa]

Read this as often as you have to.

Positive thoughts

[nomorepanic]

If you ran 3 miles yesterday then it is nothing serious at all.

[HelloPanda23]

Okay so, about two months ago, my health anxiety started and it scared me to death. It was after I had my first redbull, and so I had my first panic attack in the process. I was completely short of breath, and so I got scared and assumed I was dying. The day after, I found myself concentrating on my breathing no matter how hard I tried to get distracted. I'd have to consciously breath instead of my body automatically doing it for me. I wanted to go to the doctor, but realized that it was a problem that came from me, and that it got resolved every time I was distracted or focused on something else. After this fear was resolved, my fear switched to me having heart issues. I felt as if my heart was skipping beats and so I went a whole day in complete and utter fear. I eventually got over that, and so then I was focused on the way I would feel when I'd get home from school. I'd worry whether my day would feel terrible, and that I would be sad and upset at home. This is because the anxiety was bothering me a lot, and sometimes causing me panic attacks. That left me thinking that my home was an uncomfortable place to be at. A week passes like that, and then my breathing issue is back. This time, my anxiety made me think I wasn't getting enough air and that my breathing wasn't good. I got scared, but got over that as well. Then, when I was talking to a friend, I was concentrated onto something else in my mind, and so when I tried to talk to him, my speech sounded like ,"jaklsjaslk." I realized this was due to anxiety, but I still made the mistake of searching up, "slurred speech." This is when my life took a huge turn for the worse. ALS pops up, and at first, I freaked out, but then I was able to calm down and understand it was just anxiety. Just to make sure, I decided to read up on ALS and see if my other symptoms matched it. Clumsiness was another symptom, and that reminded me of that one time I slipped my glass water while drinking it in bed. I immediately freaked out even more, and panicked a lot. Throughout doing research about this scary disease, though, I realized that the clumsiness came from weak muscles, not from an actual mess up. As a result, the fear of clumsiness went away. Same thing with the slurred speech, if some pronunciation was messed up once, it'd permanently be messed up. Obviously, that isn't the case for me because I can speak completely normally. Now, all that stayed in me was complete and utter fear of actually getting this disease. I knew I had no symptoms and yet I poked at my fears. I started to have constant panic attacks, barely ate, and had terrible days. After a week of this, I had a lot of nausea, loss of appetite, stomach aches, vomiting, dizziness, and etc. Then I started to get better and better after I realized it was simply anxiety scaring me to death. Sadly, this got bad because I made the stupid mistake of focusing on my right leg. By focusing on my right leg, I obviously made it uncomfortable for me while walking, because it makes the mind think I need to put effort in order to walk, otherwise known as perceived weakness. This didn't freak me out at all, but just 2 days ago, I ended up having weird pains in my right leg. Like a stabbing pain, and more perceived weakness. As a result, I kept testing my legs and did everything to make sure that this pain wasn't from ALS taking its toll on my body. I passed every single test I took, including the foot drop test. These new found pains obviously didn't in anyway affect the function of my right leg though. I can walk just as much as I could last year, last month, last week, and overall before this pain occurred. No problem at all, but the pain is still there until I get my legs moving for a bit. When I do, the pain subsides and my legs feel better. For this reason, I'm somewhat scared this may be super early symptoms of ALS because I read that some people who have ALS previously had muscle pains and cramps 2 years prior to their diagnosis. That scared me a crap load, and so I just want to know if what I'm feeling are symptoms of ALS, or if it's just anxiety. Btw, I turned 16 last month, and none of my family members have had ALS in their lives. I read that most people who got ALS before the age of 30 usually were familial, but there were also those who were sporadic. My fears are subsiding a lot as of right now, but I just want a peace of mind at this point. I know it's completely in my ability to stop myself from fearing this disease, and I know I can stop as long as I know it's right to take on that step. If anything, the fear that I had went away a lot after I kept myself busy with friends, school, and games for 2 weeks. The leg pain was there, but it would only occur when I would first stand up after sitting for maybe an hour or so, afterwards, once I'd keep walking, the pain would fade away. As a last reminder, I never had any muscle issues with my legs until I read about ALS. Please help.

[Fishmanpa]

What help do you really need? You know you don't have it and you know it's your anxiety. Your entire post was affirmation. The help you need is real life help managing the irrational thoughts of anxiety... Especially at your age. Frankly, again, your post was not unlike a CBT worksheet. Symptom/fear/reality. Get help now and nip this in the bud. You don't want it controlling your life.

I'm not going to reassure you because you can reassure yourself. You also know that Googling just feeds your dragon so stop it! If you have some weak moments, read this as many times as you need to.

Positive thoughts

[HelloPanda23]

Some background: I am a 21 year old white male. Ive dealt with health anxiety, generalized anxiety, and depression for years.

Im worried about ALS because 2 weeks ago I got a cramp/ sharp pain in my calf which lasted about 10-15 minutes until I ate something at which it seemed to have gone away for the most part. I panicked and remembered cramping is a sign of ALS. Since then, my right leg has felt tight. It feels worse when Im extremely anxious as well. To make matters worse, my toes on my right foot twitch. The ones on my left foot twitch, but it seems as if my right one twitches more.

I went to the doctor a week ago and he put me back on lexapro, which I had been off for two months. He told me its stress and anxiety related. He said if its still an issue after 3 weeks, that he will order bloodwork and an EMG. Its been a week since that doctors visit and my leg hasn't gotten much better, and so I am extremely worried.

Sometimes I get little aches in my right leg, but nothing too painful. Most of the twitching and weird feelings seems to be in the right foot/calf/thigh. I don't have any weakness, I ran 3 miles yesterday.

Any advice or help is appreciated.

I'm just as worried. I sometimes get aches on my leg as well and sharp pains as well. I can walk normally like I used to, with no weakness at all. Just a bit of pain, and not much else. It's only on my right leg, and I'm scared if it's anything serious. Hopefully, it isn't.

[HelloPanda23]

What help do you really need? You know you don't have it and you know it's your anxiety. Your entire post was affirmation. The help you need is real life help managing the irrational thoughts of anxiety... Especially at your age. Frankly, again, your post was not unlike a CBT worksheet. Symptom/fear/reality. Get help now and nip this in the bud. You don't want it controlling your life.

Positive thoughts

If you truly think I have nothing to fear, I'll try and get rid of this fear as best as I can. Everything was getting better for me until last week, because something occurred that caused me a lot of stress and anxiety. Also, I never google my symptoms without putting, "anxiety" next to it. It's just a way to ensure that I don't find myself fearing a deadly disease, I just made that mistake once. Thank you for the help.

---------- Post added at 04:29 ---------- Previous post was at 02:00 ----------

Anyone else have input on whether I should be worried or not?

[Fishmanpa]

Anyone else have input on whether I should be worried or not?

You're sixteen... sixteen! That alone is enough to discount your fear. Did you read that link I put in my reply? Any questions?

Positive thoughts

[HelloPanda23]

You're sixteen... sixteen! That alone is enough to discount your fear. Did you read that link I put in my reply? Any questions?

Positive thoughts

I know, but people my age have gotten it before.

[Andrash]

Some background: I am a 21 year old white male. Ive dealt with health anxiety, generalized anxiety, and depression for years.

Im worried about ALS because 2 weeks ago I got a cramp/ sharp pain in my calf which lasted about 10-15 minutes until I ate something at which it seemed to have gone away for the most part. I panicked and remembered cramping is a sign of ALS. Since then, my right leg has felt tight. It feels worse when Im extremely anxious as well. To make matters worse, my toes on my right foot twitch. The ones on my left foot twitch, but it seems as if my right one twitches more.

I went to the doctor a week ago and he put me back on lexapro, which I had been off for two months. He told me its stress and anxiety related. He said if its still an issue after 3 weeks, that he will order bloodwork and an EMG. Its been a week since that doctors visit and my leg hasn't gotten much better, and so I am extremely worried.

Sometimes I get little aches in my right leg, but nothing too painful. Most of the twitching and weird feelings seems to be in the right foot/calf/thigh. I don't have any weakness, I ran 3 miles yesterday.

Any advice or help is appreciated.

ALS is motor neuron disease, not sensory. That means pains, aches, tightness, numbness...are not symptoms. It is totally normal to have cramps during/after exercises.