Anxiety After Testicular Cancer Scare

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D

dcraig

Member
Let me preface my twitching onset: I'm a 26 year old male. I had never really had health anxiety until I had a doctor tell me I may have testicular cancer early this year in January. It really put me into a full on panic mode. I was cleared of having cancer, but literally the day of the Ultrasound I began having chest pains which set me into a whole new state of panic. I went to one of my GPs (i have one I can just pop into without an appointment) and was complaining of chest pains and it felt like I could not get a full breath. They gave me a shoddy lung capacity test and told me my lungs were only outputting about 60% of air lol, so that put me into even more panic for another month. Went to a pulmonologist and found out my lungs were perfectly normal. So all in all I had about 5 months of unnecessary health anxiety which prompted my twitches. I was told I had likely developed GERD from all of this and was put on Omeprazole which seemed to curb the chest pain.So, I started twitching initially on my right ear in April, then it moved to one arm and then the other and by May I had widespread twitching. So I've been full blown twitching for about 5+ months: all over my face, head, arms, legs, arches of feet, stomach, chest, back, etc etc. Initially I was having hand pain that accompanied all of this, mainly pain in the finger tips which would get insanely painful after lifting or moving anything. I went to a GP 2 months ago for the twitching and was told I had very low vitamin D levels, so I've been taking vitamin D. He didn't refer me to a neuro or try to perform any strength tests (guessing the thought of ALS wouldn't have even entered his mind and really didn't enter mine either at the time). I also have this thing going on where my muscle movement is very unsmooth. If I sit in a chair and left my heel off the ground then try to return it to the floor, my ankles/legs shake uncontrollably as they go back to the floor. I get a similar thing with my flexing/deflexing of biceps though it is not nearly as prominent. My neck muscles do something similar. I posted a video of that in a BFS Questions thread.A month ago I started reading this website and it prompted me to look at my tongue. I noticed my tongue is pretty much twitching all the time and that I can't feel any of those twitches. Either I can't fully rest it or they're real twitches. Even with that information, I was still sort of "over" my twitching and I wasn't really very concerned anymore. However, a few weeks ago I started having to clear my throat daily and that sort of set me into full on fear mode of Bulbar ALS :p. I feel like I constantly have to clear my throat/cough so I can speak correctly. Now, just this last week my tongue has begun to fissure along with the twitching. I had one crack open up (half an inch long) a few days ago and now I have a second starting right by it. I'm not sure if a cracking tongue is a bulbar ALS symptom but it is sort of scaring me that it is some sort of muscle loss/atrophy. I can still do everything I can think of and speak normally and swallow normally as far as I can tell (though I've stuttered my entire life so it is not like someone would tell me if I sounded funny :p). If I rest my tongue in my mouth as much as I can, I get rapid twitches on the surface of the tongue. If I stick my tongue out or put it to use in any way then my tongue looks like a box of worms. Fully stretching my tongue actually reduces the twitches since It is likely more difficult to see anything and the muscle is being fully used.I made a short video even though I know no one here can really tell me anything about my tongue twitching. I guess it just helps to get stuff in the open. I'm finally make a neuro appointment tomorrow as I've been putting it off for over a month and just need to get it done.Video is basically: Tongue at rest, tongue slightly extended, tongue showing fissure. Sorry for the poor lighting and video quality :p. For whatever reason, I can't find a render quality that is as good as how I took the video, so the twitches are a bit more blurry/harder to see. It is also a bit harder to rest my tongue and shoot the video, but the surface of the tongue looks about the same either way.Tongue video formats:WMV - MP4 - Thanks for any thoughts.
 
So you slur? Does food get stuck in your throat?A slightly tongue extension is enough tension to make your tongue muscle tense and twtich by the way.
 
Hi,what you describe regarding pain in the chest, clearing throat, feeling of food stick in your throat for hours fits GERD/acidic gastritis clinical picture perfectly. Stress you experienced waiting for onco issue solving had affected your autonomous nervous system, and therefore many related functions, primarily GIT, as it is under its control :) we all suffer from that and every one takes it for bulbar, so you are absolutely not alone :)Our tongues twitch even being slightly protruded, and this is normal physiological movement, not twitching at all. Some of us have trye fasculation of tongue muscles seen in rest, but again nothing bad in consequence.GERD would not just go wawy after omeprazole, you may silence the symptomes but autonomous disfunction needs much more time to be calmned down and maybe you will have that for years (especially if you would throuw yourself into panic repetedly due to those or any other symptomes). That would be a long stroy anyway. And you would be prone to relapses.
 
I'd have TwitchyMD have a look; he's good about this kind of thing, although he might require you get a higher quality video (I'm having a hard time with the current video as well).
 
Omeprazole could be a reason for twitching.I was taking Nexium for many years. I think this could have provoked twitching because those pills have an effect on the Magnesium levels in our body.If you google you would find some stories about it.Regarding the tongue. Your tongue looks pretty normal and strong but (I'm not a doctor) there is twitching which means absolutely nothing if you have got no other symptoms.Does it happen all the time or only after chewing or pressing your tongue?I also had issues with my tongue and had an EMG - i think an EMG could ease your mind and make you stop looking at your tongue all the time. I know its easy to say but hard to make. I was obsessed for a period. Wherever there was mirror i was checking my tongue (while driving, elevators, bathrooms, mobile phone etc..)
 
My tongue twitching is pretty much constant and I cannot feel it. I get the big twitches which are probably just my tongue not staying still and then I get very fine rapid fire twitches on the surface of my tongue (like 10 in a second). They're really not visible with the poor video quality. Can't feel any of that. I'm starting to think it may just be in general what is going on with my muscles. I've been having this thing where if I flex a muscle, and then deflex it, the muscles will quiver erratically until they go back to normal position. Happens in my ankles, biceps, chest, neck, etc. I'm sort of assuming that my tongue is sort of constantly in this flex/deflexing state and constantly quivers due to it.As far as Omeprazole goes, I didn't start that til after the twitching. Though I had taken 30 days of Nexium prior to the twitching (changed to omeprazole later on as Nexium didnt seem to be helping)And yeah I've been doing better about the past week or so. Haven't really been checking my tongue or testing myself. Obviously fears come back on occasion, but I just wave them off and move on. All my fingers twitching is a little worrisome and annoying, but honestly whatever :p.
 
I made some new, higher quality (sort of!) videos for your viewing pleasure since the other ones were pretty bad. You might have to download them as mp4s on Dropbox is kind of weird: - Tongue slightly extended / crazy quivering look (I understand the tongue needs to be at rest, was trying to convey what I see my tongue look like most of the time nowadays :p.) - about as "at rest" as I can get my tongue, though it should prob be pushed back more. Quite difficult to get the tongue in the proper position to be rested :p. There is some obvious little movements I'm probably making on my own there.
 
As others will undoubtedly chime in to say: these are not tongue fasciculations, but rather tongue tremor. 100% nothing.
 
Thanks for the response neville. It's just kind of scary to me because it looks somewhat similar to all these "ALS tongue" videos you see. I know I'm not thinking logically though when I search the internet like an idiot. Curious what other people think as well, though ;). Thanks again.
 
It does look like the ALS tongue to you the non neuro. There's a neuro on this board who used to post a lot more and he would tell you this: it's extremely hard to identify tongue fasciculations, especially on protruded tongue. That being said, I'm 4 months in and I think--from looking at different videos--I've figured it out. You'll notice on those videos of ALS tongues there are hundreds of unorganized micro twitches ALONGSIDE the tongue tremoring. Your tongue seems to be merely tremoring. You do not have these repetitive, unorganized twitches of single motor units.
 
No movements in your video are fasciculations and your tongue looks perfectly healthy. Fasciculations are quite different movements than those seen in your video. Do not borrow troubles..
 

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