As a man with a HA problem who just managed to overcome his ALS fear, let me help you.
So, you are afraid you'll be joining the luminaries of sports and science like Lou Gehrig, Stephen Hawking or Fernando Ricksen? Don't be. The thing with ALS is: it is devilishly hard to diagnose it (because its symptoms are common with soooo many other illnesses and it mostly doesn't show on scans) but, luckily for everyone with HA, it's fairly easy to determine when you don't have it. In your case, it's clearly so.
Firstly your symptoms. Muscle twitching in legs, eye twitching, mild nausea, dizziness, tingling. ALS start in one limb, or in your mouth. It can't start in both legs, or both legs and an arm. Secondly, when you have ALS, it's the other way around-FIRST atrophy and weakness, THAN twitching. Thirdly eye muscles are either not affected by the disease at all, or are the LAST muscles ALS affects-that's why people like Hawking, who would otherwise be locked-in from ALS, communicate with blinking-their eye muscles are ok. Last, but not the least-ALS is a MOTOR neuron disease, not sensory. That means people do not experience pains, numbness, tingling and other strange sensations, and that's why it's so insidious and dreaded. Therefore, the things you feel-definitely not from ALS.
This should be enough to persuade you you don't have it, but if it's not-here some self-tests that you can make to rule it out:
-Staying on one leg: stay on one leg for 3-5 seconds. If you can do it, you don't have ALS. I know, you can panic and shake and fall and that can create more panic-that doesn't matter, since it's enough to make it once in 100 attempts and you still don't have ALS. People with ALS can never make it-they are never able to balance.
-Jump at the stair with both feet. If you can do it, you don't have ALS.
-Catch something moderately heavy-for example, a pint of milk, with only your thumb and index finger. If you're able to lift it, even for one single second, you don't have ALS.
If you're worried about bulbar (mouth) onset of ALS, try these:
-Whistling-if you can whistle, whether by sucking air or blowing it, you don't have ALS.
-Breathing through pursed lips-if you can do it, you don't have ALS.
Of course, even if you "fail" some of these things, it can (and odds are it is, since your odds to get ALS are something like 1:10000000) be something else, anxiety being the main culprit.
So, your troubles are not the symptoms of ALS. Alas, they are symptoms of the health anxiety disorder. It IS a disease, just like ALS-only not that deadly, luckily. But still, it should be treated. Therefore, try to calm down, read this carefully, if necessary do this little exercise to put your mind at ease-than start treating what really is a problem-HA.
Originally Posted by Andrash
As a man with a HA problem who just managed to overcome his ALS fear, let me help you.
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