BFS and Anxiety: Related?

[DaveDiggler]

Carolyn-

What you are asking is sort of like which came first, the chicken or the egg? I think BFS and anxiety do go hand in hand for some people. Until I developed BFS I never had a "panic attack" in my life. To answer your question, I think that it is possible that they are un-related but my bet is that somewhere, somehow they are related to each other. You mentioned that you had two panic attacks prior to the one on Sunday...did they happen before the BFS symptoms or have you gotten all 3 after you discovered the twitches?

--David

 

[melyssa221]

bfs and anxiety are a marriage made in heaven

 

[Alonzo]

There has been no evidence what so ever that twitching has anything to do with anxiety or panic attacks. It is totally reasonable to go into a sheer panic attack when you are viably scared that you may have something seriously wrong with you.

Does Cancer have anything to do with anxiety? Hell no, but don't you think some people go into a sheer panic attack when they get diagnosed with a terrible form of Cancer? Of course they do, but does that mean Cancer and anxiety go hand in hand or are a match made in heaven? No way.

It's a scary thing thinking you might have something as horrible as ALS, and when you are misinformed that twitches are an early sign of ALS, it is hard to conviince yourself again that it isn't true, so naturally, anxiety would play a major role in the whole scenario.

People with BFS have every right to be scared and to panic when they think they might have the early symptoms of a horrific disease such as ALS.

ANY "normal" person would have anxiety over a thought like that and unfortunately, people are so misinformed and there are so many grey areas with twitching possibly being benign, and maybe not being benign, that the anxiety lingers-on for many months in some people because there is smply no quick test (like Cancer) to say immediately whether you do or don't have ALS or anything else nasty.

Some doctors say even if you have a clean EMG, you should get a second one again in a few months to rule out any possibility of having ALS. Well what are you suppossed to do during those months, relax? Yeah right! Maybe with a 40mg dose of Valium or a 6mg dose of Ativan you "might" be able to relax.

So in a nutshell, does anxiety "cause" BFS? No. Does twitching "cause" panic attacks? No. Is it "reasonable" to be scared, anxious and even have panic attacks because you think you might have some kind of deadly disease? Of course it's reasonable, but it doesn't mean one is connected to the other in any way, shape or form molecularly.