Bulbar Onset - 4 Months On

Months before my full body twitching started I noticed that now and then my words were coming out slurred, I had extra saliva, and was noticing a feeling of food getting stuck in my throat while eating! That was nearly four months ago, I still have excess saliva and food does get stuck in my throat and now and then my words seem to be slurred, if this we're bulbar onset by now after four months would my speech be a lot worse? This all happened before my twitching started all over my body! I also find that I have involuntary swallowing a lot, and gag easily! Your opinions would be greatly appreciated as to if you think I would be much worse over four months if it we're bulbar onset! Thank you all in advance for your time!

What Im trying to ask is by now would my speech have significantly declined? Or with bulbar onset ALS would it still be the same after four months and the worst is yet to come? I'm sorry everyone Im just scared to death right now!

Is there anyone out there that can comment on this?

Shaski! You are becoming your own worst enemy. Try not to borrow trouble... Did you get my reply to your Private Message?

Bulbar onset (whenALS first takes the bulbar part of the brain) is known to be one of the rarest in ALS itself. And well, ALS again is not what you can not notice.Looks like you were always prone to anxiety. Esophagal symptomes are one of the prominent and most stubborn issue in anxious people, and in our case sometimes those troubles can be caused by physical changes in the throat musculature observed as part of connective tissue deficiency (which is a component of disorder triade for many of our fellows).I've read about an old lady who must probably had bulbar onset but was not told about that by doctors (in fact she would not like to refer to them and her daughter was consulting the doctor online) and thought she has something with a jaws. Well, withing about 6 month she can not eat normally, were slurring so much she had to quite a job (she was a teacher) and was really enable to hols the mouth closed so was drooling as a river. Everybody had notices that she is sick (and she also did), so I do not think it is your case.Anxious peiople usually complain for extra saliva - it is true because they are overloaded with adrenaline causing in short term dry mouth but in long term hypersalivation. Anxious people have difficulties with swallowing and up to pains in the throat and esophagus, but only becasue spasms caused by vagus nerve hyperexcitation and not because paralysed throat muscles or disrupion of swallowing reflex, like it happens in true bulbar onset. We even can slurry a bit but usually nobody in our closes environment did not notice that.Before BFS I spent 3 years in speaking therapy becasue of my GAD, adn I continued it becasue of my new health anxiety. And do you know what I found? I became more thorough not only in looking for my own body, but for other peoples' too. I found that my husband twitches without noticing that, that my mom gags when eating ans speaking and does not notice that, that everybody around me have same as I have and in the same frequency - and pay no attention to that becasue it is NORMAL. It is normal to gag sometimes or slurry in a few words several times per day, it is normal to have lower legs twitches etc. etc.That was a good confirmation of idea that we anxious people are prone to overestimate our body functions, exagerrate them and consider that as a symptomes of various diseases. We often have so called allodynia - lower pain threshold, that is why we feel a hell of pains which normal people have too but never consider as pains - those sensations never reach their pain centers because they have filters in the brain but we lost them or never had.

During your every day life, are most all of your friends/family/coworkers having trouble understanding you due to the slurring? I bet not. What you have described doesn't sound the least bit worrisome, and it's not uncommon for us to "feel" like we are slurring but as with most things, we are POOR judges of our own condition.