Hello everyone. Let me first say that, like so many others, this board has been a great help. I'm a 31 year old male going through a rough patch and really appreciate everyone sharing their stories and experiences.My issues started about a week and a half ago. I had just gone through an amazingly stressful time. We had just gone through one of the busiest times at work (I'm a graphic designer) we've had in over 3 years. On top of that, at home we were going through a period of about 6 weeks in which my six year daughter had scarlet fever, my two year old daughter had a strange reaction to the herpes virus that caused her to have a high fever of 104 for almost a week in which the doctors had no idea what it was as well a few weeks later a trip to the ER as she had developed a cashew allergy. In addition to all this, my wife had shingles which the lingering effects included a trip to the ER and her general physician concerned she had the early signs of MS and ordering an MRI. Everything came back clean and they wrote it up everything to the shingles.I did not handle this period well. So a little over a week ago when my wife got her results back and the everything was good, I could feel the tension from the previous weeks of anxiety releasing in my back. The next few days I had bad muscle pain in the trapezius muscle in my back. While I was at work, I would take a lot of breaks and each over my shoulders and massage my back. Being right handed, my left hand got very exhausted from this as I was mainly using my forefinger and middle finger to massage the places on my back. After two days of doing this, I developed and occasional twitch in my left hand in between my forefinger and thumb. At first it was so strong it caused my forefinger to twitch toward my thumb as well. I've always experienced muscle twitches and never given them much thought. After I jog, the back of my right thigh will twitch for a few seconds. I've had my back twitch, my eyelids, etc... But for some reason this concerned me. It would twitch for a few seconds and then stop. Then an hour or so later, twitch again. So I made the tragic mistake of googling it thinking I was find some directions on icing it or stretching it or something. Instead the first thing that popped up was ALS. I didn't really know what it was and so I looked into it and, like so many other, found myself in a full-out anxiety attack. I kept reading more for some reassurance that I didn't have this horrible disease. I came across a Yahoo article that had strength tests you could do. I had no problem with doing any of them (opening jars, opening white out or finger nail polish with just my forefinger and thumb, playing guitar, etc...). But over this last weekend I started obsessively testing my strength and probably actually further injured my forefinger as it started hurting and I could feel the tightness in my tendons. This anxiety also made me hyper aware of the rest of my body. So I'd feel twitches in my shoulder, or in my right though, it the right side of my back. During the first part of this week, anything I felt became a trigger for the anxiety to take over. I would have some tingling in the area between the finger and thumb or feel what felt like buzzing and it would trigger the downward spiral into anxiety and fear. Ever since all this stress started I've been trying to jog more and that helps. I also do push ups and pull ups and such and those help.The twitching in between my forefinger and thumb has decreased in both strength and frequency (once or twice a day just for a few seconds) once I made the decision to treat the sore muscles and ligaments in my hand like sore muscles and ligaments as opposed to constantly testing the strength out of fear of ALS. The logical part of my brain says I've experienced no muscle weakness what so ever and so stop the fear and anxiety. The irrational part of my brain runs back to things I stupidly read on the ALS forums about cases of twitches with no weakness. Even though I read things that ALS twitches come and go or that people don't experience ALS twitches all over, or how rare the disease is, it does little to disuade the fear as the fear is irrational to begin with. Instead of constantly trying to read about that horrible disease, if I need to read something I read about anxiety and how to handle it better. I have a doctor's appointment next Tuesday which I want to discuss with him my anxiety.Again, this board is a great help and just typing out my experience so far has been really helpful. Hopefully I can avoid any future drops on this roller coaster or at least handle them better. I would love to hear anyone's thoughts and thanks again!
31-Year-Old Male Seeking Support
- Thread starter mgrey7893
- Start date
You sound so like me. I had a similar twitch when I was pregnant with my son (who is now 4.5 years old) that went away after a few days, luckily, but that was my first intro as well to Dr. Google (my doctor then chalked it up to a mild case of carpal tunnel which oddly is common in pregnant women). Then a few years later (in 2011) I had a twitch for 3 days on my thigh, that re-instigated my fears, which also went away after a few days. Then boom - in July of 2011, I noticed my calves were twitching non-stop which finally pushed me down the downward spiral of anxiety and fear and finally to see a neuro. Unfortunately, for me, these twitches never went away. But, my EMG was good (only fasciculations) and that was close to 2 years ago.Your story sounds so familiar. The fact that you only twitch once or twice a day clearly tells me you're fine. I think you've irritated your wrist or something. But, I'm not a doctor, and I'm glad you're seeing one. I think you can feel very confident that you either have BFS or a temporary twitch that may very well go away.Mitra
TwitchyBoomer
Active member
My advice is to read about the overwhelming majority of non-deadly maladies that include twitching among their symptoms. The more you do, the more your focus will shift away from what raises your anxiety. There was a time I thought I would need to take valium indefinitely to even sleep. But I weened myself off of it very soon and tried some alternative remedies like passion flower and melatonin for sleep. After my symptoms abated substantially, I no longer needed anything. But the greatest help for me was finally facing and becoming informed about what ALS is and what true weakness really means (clinical weakness) and how the disease progresses. I realized the chances of me having it are absolutely no greater than anyone else, even non twitchers. That is undoubtedly the case for you too. I strength tested too and probably still do in the back of my mind (after 8 months + of symptoms). But I focused on it less and less over time. Time is often the only healing agent for these things. All the best,Mark
HI,I just read a list of your worries and stopped. Because really having all that in such condensed way SHOULD make you twitch for sure. PAin in the muscles comes from real physical tension, and you probably know that already.as for the ALS symptomes and signs 
)) well, whatever you can read on ALS sites, the difference is that people in ALS lost their muscle strenght. Before twitches, after twitches, does not matter. Key issue and key diagnostic feature is loss of muscle ablitiy to contract due to death of neurons in the brain and spine. Which is practically ruled out not by the fact if the person is twitching or not, but by means of many tests all of them should have concordant results (clinical exam, reflex test, EMG, TMS, etc.). All this should point to severe troubles, and after that ALS can be diagnosed. Twitches are not indicative for ALS only.
)) well, whatever you can read on ALS sites, the difference is that people in ALS lost their muscle strenght. Before twitches, after twitches, does not matter. Key issue and key diagnostic feature is loss of muscle ablitiy to contract due to death of neurons in the brain and spine. Which is practically ruled out not by the fact if the person is twitching or not, but by means of many tests all of them should have concordant results (clinical exam, reflex test, EMG, TMS, etc.). All this should point to severe troubles, and after that ALS can be diagnosed. Twitches are not indicative for ALS only.I wanted to first say thanks for the responses above. I had to take a break from the internet all together as it was clearly only adding to my anxiety. As I mentioned in my first post, what started out as just a twitch in my hand followed what seems to be the common BFS progression and turned into twitching all over. Since I last posted I have twitched everywhere. I've had days where my pinky toe on my right foot was going crazy and moving all on it's own. Other days where a back muscle was going crazy and then some where it was just all over. I did go to the doctor shortly after my first post (about 3 weeks ago) and he was quick to say it was anxiety. I told him about the twitching and my fears of ALS. He said one thing Google or WebMD do not take into account is clearly how rare ALS is and how even more rare it is in people under the age of 50. He also said that new studies are showing that ALS has a strong correlation with head trauma and that is the reason football players and soldiers are developing it at about 4x the rate of folks without head trauma and even those numbers are still rare. Apparently they are even doing research that Lou Gehrig had suffered multiple concussions from being hit with a baseball and they believe this lead to his development of the insidious disease. My doctor also pointed out that this was really common among medical students. I live in the Raleigh/ Durham area of NC and my doc went to Duke and still has ties with the school there and he was saying it is very common for stress and anxiety to lead students to thinking that they have a number of neurological and other rare deadly diseases. The doctor put me on a SSRI called Citalpram. Be forewarned, as mentioned in the "BFS in a nutshell" post, that these drugs have side effects for the first few weeks that will drive you crazy. The first day I took it, my legs and feet tingled and twitched like fireworks were going off in them. This did not help my anxiety. I would say the next 5-6 days I was even more anxious and my fears of ALS kept coming back. I did not sleep well at all which also compounds things like anxiety. These side effects lasted almost exactly two weeks. Since then though I have felt much better. I'm sure the medicine has a part in it, the other big thing is accepting that you don't have a deadly, neurological disease. To me, that is the biggest key. That constant fear or the worst only wrecks your nerves more and causes more twitching. Below are some online reading that really helped me finally accept that I was not sick but suffering from fear and anxiety:This SiteThere are numerous threads on here that I found myself reading on a daily basis to combat my fears of ALS. I would highly recommend the "BFS is a nutshell", "A note of reassurance" and "Why you don't have ALS". Start with those but also read the other posts and take comfort that so many people are facing similar symptoms and fears.Article on ALS siteI know I avoided anything to do with ALS sites like the plague but this is an article from a neurologist who specializes in treating ALS addressing twitching and the fear that surrounds it when people look it up online. He says twitching alone is not a sign of ALS and must have progressive muscle weakness associated to be potentially considered ALS. He says it's more likely stress, anxiety or even a pinched nerve. Sound familiar?Anxiety Zone postGreat post on how anxiety symptoms lead people to think they have something like MS and ALS. They even describe the progression so many of experience where even though doctors say we are ok, we question it. The anxiety zone site in general is great and you would not believe how many people on there list muscle twitching as a symptom. Lastly, I read the book "Hope and Help for your Nerves" by Dr. Claire Weekes and that too was a great help. She goes into detail how stress and anxiety can lead to the development of muscle twitches or people thinking they are having a heart attack. The best thing in the book is about the fear cycle I think we all have found ourselves in. A muscle twitches and we start to fear it's this deadly disease. That fear releases more adrenaline and that causes more twitching and strange feelings. And the cycle keeps going. She has some great approaches for overcoming this and I can honestly say they really help. The book is in paperback and only like $7 (I got on the apple store for my iPod and it was the same price). I hope some of these things help others as much as this site has helped me continue dealing with this. Yes, I still experience twitches and I know it's going to take some time for my nerves to get back in order. But I'm so much less afraid of it all and can get on with my day which is a world of difference from where I was just a couple weeks ago.