Tried not to fall down the rabbit hole, but I did anyway.

[Pelly22]

Hey all.

To start, I'm a 23 year old dude from America. A couple of months ago I noticed that my left leg twitches pretty frequently. Toes, calf, ankle, thigh, glute, the whole shebang. I've always been a twitchy guy, since I was like 16 (had an ALS scare then too, haha), but I remember it being much more widespread. So of course those anxious thoughts crept into my mind. "What if this time it's real?", etc. So I decided to take a cursory look at my feet, and to my horror, my entire left foot has less muscle than the right. Toes have less, foot has less, ankle has less. This is what really sent me down the whole, because I was convinced it was atrophy. So then the twitches go wild, but still confined to my left leg. On top of this, my grandfather died of ALS. We're 99% sure it was a sporadic case, as he's the only one in the 200 years of family death records that I could find that died of ALS, but there's always that chance that it was familial. This obviously makes it harder for me to shake the fear. It's been a couple of months now, and my foot still looks the same, so I'm less convinced that it's atrophy than I was, but it's still concerning. I have a neurologist appointment on July 14th, that my GP didn't even want to refer me to but I asked specifically for. In good news, I just got prescribed Lexapro for anxiety so hopefully that will help a bit with this. So yeah, has anyone else had localized twitching? Or noticed bodily asymmetry that they thought was atrophy? Any similar stories would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!

[peg54321]

I checked, the average age for onset of ALS is 58 years of age.. so your age might help you to relax abit. Some time ago i was worried about having MS and the nuerologist told me nobody is symmetrical. I hope this helps.

[kyllikki]

Yep, me. I twitched mostly in my right leg for at least 9 months or so starting in August 2021, though I did also have body wide twitching during that time, due to mental freakout (feel free to read my thread.)

Long story short? Sciatica in right leg + scoliosis + thyroid issues + rampant anxiety/OCD = I twitched like a madwoman for well over a year until a combination of PT, a lovely friend from this Forum, therapy, and the lowest adult dose of Prozac straightened me out and gave me my life back.

Even with family history under consideration, you are still statistically more likely to have sciatica, at any age, than ALS. Add in that you're young and have twitched for years and aren't reporting any weakness, just asymmetry and twitching (which literally everybody on planet earth has, and yes, I mean EVERY BODY) and, well...

come back and post in a year, please, to pass the hope on to others!

[Pelly22]

Thought I would just pop back in with a little update. Had my neuro appointment, totally clean, all reflexes fine, etc. I told her about the size difference of my feet and she said it's really common for people to have asymmetrical feet. Also she told me that in ALS, weakness usually comes before atrophy, except for very complex muscles. I am doing a lot better now, from the neuro appointment but mostly from the fact that it's been three months and I can still walk and stuff, and my foot doesn't look any different. So yeah, doing better! thanks for the help all!