Outlook1958
Well-known member
Hello friends!I hope you are all doing well. My last visit here was more than a year ago, but today I just thought that it's about time to visit you once again 
. Being a "long-term-patient" I hope that my reports on my health status will help reassure you and show you that there's nothing to be scared about, despite all the menacing stuff you might find if you google "muscle twitches" etc.My story in brief: My fascics started bodywide during or shortly after some unspecified, but really nasty viral infection in December 2008. In fact there were several factors that might have led to this twitching, as I had done some really stupid stuff the day before it started: I was out drinking with friends, drank too much and severly cut my right hand while climbing over a fence that night. After that I was taken to the hospital, they stitched my hand back together, but the day after that I became ill. The illness felt a little like a common cold, but with less of the typical symptoms like throat soreness and much higher fever. Of course the first thing everyone thought of was wound infection, but after detailed diagnosis they said that it was a viral infection, i.e. I probably caught that the night I was out, but not as a direct result of the hand injury. I might have caught the virus in the bar, outside, or maybe even in the hospital. Probably the large amount of alcohol and the severe injury had negative effects on my immune system. That was also the day my twitches started... So it might have been the injury, the infection, the anesthetic for the operation/stitching of the injury, or something else.Have a look at my welcome thread if you'd like to read the details: . There I wrote that I suspected the betablocker "Metoprolol" to be a possible reason for the fascics, but in the meanwhile I can exclude that: During the past years I stopped taking the betablocker for one year (after discussing that with the cardiologist, of course), but this hasn't changed anything. Now I'm taking the stuff again because my blood pressure slowly started rising again and the cardiologist prescribed my the pills again.So, right now I'm feeling perfectly fine. I still do have the twitches, usually in my legs or sometimes in my hands/wrists, occasionaly somewhere around my chest and stomach. However, nothing has significantly changed regarding the symptoms. Sometimes the twitching is more intensive, sometimes less. It doesn't seem to have any connection to the amount of sleep, stress levels, illnesses, food, etc. The only thing I MIGHT have noticed by now is that I seem to have more fasciculations during the winter months than during the warm summer months: It does not depend on the room temperature directly, i.e. I do not start twitching in a cold room and stop when I come in a warm room, but it is still interesting that the symptoms are more intensive during winter. Has anybody of you noticed the same?I have no signs of atrophy or any mental of physical symptoms - I have found a full time job as a programmer by now and during the weekends I enjoy doing moderate sports like cycling, hiking, swimming and Geocaching (ever heard of that? It's fun and it really helps to divert ones mind from all that symptom googling and anxiety!). Recently we even went to a high rope adventure course and I was surprised how well I was actually doing up there . That's definitely nothing somebody with a neuromuscular disease could ever do!!! BFS is - as the name says - absolutely benign, it won't make you paralyzed and it will never ever develop into anything dangerous.As you can see, I feel quite happy and relaxed right now regarding my whole twitching issue. Believe me however - back in December 2008 and the first months of 2009 it was quite the contrary, I was really scared to death and actually didn't think that I will live long enough to finish my studies, find a job, rent a flat of my own, buy a car... But look at me now - it just took some time and some reassurance from you fellow twitchers and my neurologist to overcome the fear. And guess what? YOU can do it too! Just let the fear and anxiety go - look at me and all the other BFS veterans here: They are all fine and nobody has developed anything unexpected.Once more I would like to qoute the dialog between my neurologist and me:Neurologist: "Okay, so you have these symptoms... are you concerned about something?"Me: "Concerned? That would be a huge understatement."Neorologist: "Oh. Anything specific you're thinking about?"Me: "Yes. ALS."Neurologist: "Jeez... One more. Come on, I'll check you for the symptoms of that now. Not because I think you might have it, but just to calm you down."Remember - not everything is the way it seems at first! Imagine a small flying insect with a black and yellow striped body sitting on your desk: You'll probably think that this is a wasp and you'll be scared that it might sting you. But shouldn't you look twice? It might be this fellow here who is absolutely harmless and is trying to trick you to think that he is a wasp: . I can imagine that people didn't always know the difference. Not everything is simple and binary - not every symptom automatically means one single disease (the most dangerous one, of course -.- ) and nothing else. Many of us think that we know everything about the human body, neurology, virology etc by now - but despite all the modern medical researches we have only scraped the top of that knowledge. And lack of knowledge often leads fo false asumptions and fear. There is still much to be researched and found out, and of course we must keep in mind that the primary focus is set on common diseases like heart attacks, cancer, strokes etc, because these diseases kill so many people, whereas BFS has not killed anyone so far - and it never will!I wish that all of you will overcome your fears one day, and I hope that this topic gave you at least a little bit of hope.Warm greetings and best wishes to all of you!- Outlook1958
. Being a "long-term-patient" I hope that my reports on my health status will help reassure you and show you that there's nothing to be scared about, despite all the menacing stuff you might find if you google "muscle twitches" etc.My story in brief: My fascics started bodywide during or shortly after some unspecified, but really nasty viral infection in December 2008. In fact there were several factors that might have led to this twitching, as I had done some really stupid stuff the day before it started: I was out drinking with friends, drank too much and severly cut my right hand while climbing over a fence that night. After that I was taken to the hospital, they stitched my hand back together, but the day after that I became ill. The illness felt a little like a common cold, but with less of the typical symptoms like throat soreness and much higher fever. Of course the first thing everyone thought of was wound infection, but after detailed diagnosis they said that it was a viral infection, i.e. I probably caught that the night I was out, but not as a direct result of the hand injury. I might have caught the virus in the bar, outside, or maybe even in the hospital. Probably the large amount of alcohol and the severe injury had negative effects on my immune system. That was also the day my twitches started... So it might have been the injury, the infection, the anesthetic for the operation/stitching of the injury, or something else.Have a look at my welcome thread if you'd like to read the details: . There I wrote that I suspected the betablocker "Metoprolol" to be a possible reason for the fascics, but in the meanwhile I can exclude that: During the past years I stopped taking the betablocker for one year (after discussing that with the cardiologist, of course), but this hasn't changed anything. Now I'm taking the stuff again because my blood pressure slowly started rising again and the cardiologist prescribed my the pills again.So, right now I'm feeling perfectly fine. I still do have the twitches, usually in my legs or sometimes in my hands/wrists, occasionaly somewhere around my chest and stomach. However, nothing has significantly changed regarding the symptoms. Sometimes the twitching is more intensive, sometimes less. It doesn't seem to have any connection to the amount of sleep, stress levels, illnesses, food, etc. The only thing I MIGHT have noticed by now is that I seem to have more fasciculations during the winter months than during the warm summer months: It does not depend on the room temperature directly, i.e. I do not start twitching in a cold room and stop when I come in a warm room, but it is still interesting that the symptoms are more intensive during winter. Has anybody of you noticed the same?I have no signs of atrophy or any mental of physical symptoms - I have found a full time job as a programmer by now and during the weekends I enjoy doing moderate sports like cycling, hiking, swimming and Geocaching (ever heard of that? It's fun and it really helps to divert ones mind from all that symptom googling and anxiety!). Recently we even went to a high rope adventure course and I was surprised how well I was actually doing up there . That's definitely nothing somebody with a neuromuscular disease could ever do!!! BFS is - as the name says - absolutely benign, it won't make you paralyzed and it will never ever develop into anything dangerous.As you can see, I feel quite happy and relaxed right now regarding my whole twitching issue. Believe me however - back in December 2008 and the first months of 2009 it was quite the contrary, I was really scared to death and actually didn't think that I will live long enough to finish my studies, find a job, rent a flat of my own, buy a car... But look at me now - it just took some time and some reassurance from you fellow twitchers and my neurologist to overcome the fear. And guess what? YOU can do it too! Just let the fear and anxiety go - look at me and all the other BFS veterans here: They are all fine and nobody has developed anything unexpected.Once more I would like to qoute the dialog between my neurologist and me:Neurologist: "Okay, so you have these symptoms... are you concerned about something?"Me: "Concerned? That would be a huge understatement."Neorologist: "Oh. Anything specific you're thinking about?"Me: "Yes. ALS."Neurologist: "Jeez... One more. Come on, I'll check you for the symptoms of that now. Not because I think you might have it, but just to calm you down."Remember - not everything is the way it seems at first! Imagine a small flying insect with a black and yellow striped body sitting on your desk: You'll probably think that this is a wasp and you'll be scared that it might sting you. But shouldn't you look twice? It might be this fellow here who is absolutely harmless and is trying to trick you to think that he is a wasp: . I can imagine that people didn't always know the difference. Not everything is simple and binary - not every symptom automatically means one single disease (the most dangerous one, of course -.- ) and nothing else. Many of us think that we know everything about the human body, neurology, virology etc by now - but despite all the modern medical researches we have only scraped the top of that knowledge. And lack of knowledge often leads fo false asumptions and fear. There is still much to be researched and found out, and of course we must keep in mind that the primary focus is set on common diseases like heart attacks, cancer, strokes etc, because these diseases kill so many people, whereas BFS has not killed anyone so far - and it never will!I wish that all of you will overcome your fears one day, and I hope that this topic gave you at least a little bit of hope.Warm greetings and best wishes to all of you!- Outlook1958