My concerns

[anxietyg]

First of all, I need to thank you all for being such a supportive community. God bless you all for being such good people.

I want to share my story with you and then I'm going to tell you what bothers me the most at this moment.

I'm a 29 year old male, pretty healthy in the past, good weight (1.90 m / 92 kg).

Two years ago I went for a random check-up at a clinic because I had some days when I felt dizzy. One time I got out of the bed and I was really off balance. I thought to myself that I should do a check up.

They said my spleen was enlarged and it's a sign of bad news. They gave me a ton of tests to do.

Needles to say that I went through a panic attack right after I exit the door of the clinic. In the day after I was feeling a shortness of breath and I started googling (bad decision) on what an enlarged spleen might be caused by.

This threw me in a circle of emotions and hyperanalization of everything that was happening with my body.

I took all the tests and for a period of several months I was having a feeling of doom. All the tests came back negative. My blood tests were perfectly normal. Then I took a CT scan of the abdominal cavity, colonoscopy, endoscopy, nothing wrong. By the time I took the CT scan my spleen was having the normal size again.

One of the tests revealed that I had toxoplasmosis (i have 4 cats...crazy cat guy I know) and this might be a cause for enlarges spleen.

Besides dizziness, i started to have an ear ringing. Because of the off / on dizziness and ear ringing I went to ENT, all the tests were good except a nasty sinusitis.

The ENT asked for a brain MRI. Took the MRI (no contrast) and it confirmed the sinusitis.

In the meanwhile I started to pay attention to my heart since it felt somehow it was beating weird. Feared of a heart attack and went to a cardiologist for an echography. He found nothing wrong with it. Went for a second opinion to a sports cardiologist and he put a 24hr monitor on me. He called next day and he told me that I have one of the healthiest hearts he ever seen.

In the meantime I started to have body-wide twitches. Every muscle strand of my body was twitching at a time or another. Started googling and every result was directing me to MS or ALS. Needless to say that I had some panic atacks because of this.

At this point several months passed and my dizziness wass an on/off process. I went to the ENT again and he asked for a second MRI (no contrast) and everything looked good with my brain but the sinusitis is still there.

One year passed (to present) I still have the body twitches (some days I cannot feel them, some days muscles get crazy). The ear ringing and racing heart feelings disappeared.

But what bothers me the most are the following symptoms (please bear with me).

1. I feel the entire body tensed.
2. Perceived weakness in the legs, hands. For example sometimes I feelike i cannot type on the phone's screen as fast as I can in a different day. This comes and goes.
3. Knees cracking. I mean, my knees crack everytime I bend my legs. I feel my legs tensed.
4. Slurred speach (this one bothers me the most). I am a fast talker usually. But sometimes I don't pronounce some of the consonant sounds in some words and I get a jolt of panic right away. The thing is that after this if I try to pronounce the same word again, i can do it without any issues.

I might sound stupid but sometimes when I catch myself mispronouncing a word, I go in a room to record myself.

5. I got really tensed shoulders.
6. I got the feeling I'm not walking "right". Like i'm concentrating on my gait.

7. I think (because i cannot evaluate this in an objective way) that my muscles are getting tired more easy than several years ago.
8. I got a feeling that my lower lip / jaw / chin is somehow numb.

Had some blood tests few days ago and besides the cholesterol being high, everything looks alright.

Most of my symptoms now are neurology sphere. I'm wondering if this is anxiety. I so scared of a disorder not discovered yet.

Thank you all, and sorry for the long post. Also, please don't be mad if it's hard to understand, I'm not a native english person.

[Fishmanpa]

Literally textbook anxiety IMO.

Positive thoughts

[anxietyg]

Thank you for your opinion Fishmanpa.

Spent several days outside of town to spend the Easter holiday with the family, twitches gone or I haven't felt them at all, no dizzy spells, felt my muscles much better, had a good atitude and I was happy about myself...

BUT...

I am still scared about the slurred speech. I mean, this days I felt like my mouth went crazy. Right now I feel like I'm afraid to talk because I might slurr the words or so. People do understand me but the words I speak sound weard. Some of the words, not all of them.


I feel exhausted (psychically).

If anyone reading this message can answer my question, please do that.

Does MS manifests itself like this when it comes to speech? I mean, as I said before, sometimes I pronounce some words like i'd be a little bit tipsy, but if I try to pronounce it again right after, I can do it correctly.


Let me phrase this in a more inteligible manner: does slurred speech caused by MS it's an ON and OFF process or it's a continuous one? A person suffering from MS would pronounce a word correctly if he tries?

Thank you all,
God bless you!

[Carys]

You can honestly use your brain to convince yourself your speech is slurring. I wrote on a post here the other day to someone else, where I stated that when I was a teenager I convinced myself I was slurring and not talking properly and lo and behold that is what happened I started slurring and speaking felt really hard as if I had to concentrate on it to get it right. Luckily speech is generally an automatic thing, the mouth forms the shape, the air comes out and we don't focus on it at all - the moment you start focussing on it, everything can go a bit pear-shaped. I think you had some major scares with all the tests and 'possible' illnesses a few years ago, and what follows that is HA. The triggers were there. I could kind of divide your post into two parts - a) tests for possible illnesses and understandable fears over them b) Nothing found wrong in the end but continuing HA symptoms.

Thank you all, and sorry for the long post. Also, please don't be mad if it's hard to understand, I'm not a native english person.

Your ability to write written English is fantastic !!!

[anxietyg]

You can honestly use your brain to convince yourself your speech is slurring. I wrote on a post here the other day to someone else, where I stated that when I was a teenager I convinced myself I was slurring and not talking properly and lo and behold that is what happened I started slurring and speaking felt really hard as if I had to concentrate on it to get it right. Luckily speech is generally an automatic thing, the mouth forms the shape, the air comes out and we don't focus on it at all - the moment you start focussing on it, everything can go a bit pear-shaped. I think you had some major scares with all the tests and 'possible' illnesses a few years ago, and what follows that is HA. The triggers were there. I could kind of divide your post into two parts - a) tests for possible illnesses and understandable fears over them b) Nothing found wrong in the end but continuing HA symptoms.



Your ability to write written English is fantastic !!!

Thank you for your kind words, Carys!

What dazzles me the most, is that in some days I feel normal (fantastic I would say), no dizziness, no off-balance-feeling, not feeling my arms and legs weak, talking 300 words per minute and then BAMM!!! Some days are like a nightmare and I feel awful. I feel like I'm slurring my words, not talking properly, twitching like crazy all over the body (sometimes I feel like my scalp is twitching), sometimes my hands are jolting (not noticeable to the rest, thank God), feeling off-balanced etc.

Bless you!

[Carys]

You are welcome !

You know, anything that 'comes and goes' isn't sinister.

[WiredIncorrectly]

Thank you for your kind words, Carys!

What dazzles me the most, is that in some days I feel normal (fantastic I would say), no dizziness, no off-balance-feeling, not feeling my arms and legs weak, talking 300 words per minute and then BAMM!!! Some days are like a nightmare and I feel awful. I feel like I'm slurring my words, not talking properly, twitching like crazy all over the body (sometimes I feel like my scalp is twitching), sometimes my hands are jolting (not noticeable to the rest, thank God), feeling off-balanced etc.

Bless you!

Some days your anxiety is less than others. I have twitches a lot, they're a sign of stress. If I've been programming all day my thumb twitches like crazy because of all the typing I've done. Same for other parts of the body. Anxiety causes the body to tense, and causes muscles to get used and exhausted. It's why you feel drained after a spell of heightened anxiety. But it's easy to forget, or miss that. Anxiety is a beast that feeds on negativity. The more positive you make yourself feel, the less anxiety. You're out of town, and relaxed, that's why your anxiety is less.

[anxietyg]

My left top eyelid twitches almost everyday for the last 2-3 months. Last year was twitching also...IIRC in the same period as this time. Sometimes I feel good, sometimes I feel miserable.

Today I felt my hands and legs as jelly but hoisted a 50 lbs sack of cement for 30-40 meters. Still feeling my hands and legs weird...feeling like having no power.

I hate this, but everytime I feel down I get to read some of the stories on this forum and I push myself to get through the day.

God bless you all!.