Celebrating Anniversary, Unexpected Muscle Twitching

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Drakemus

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I saw this story on a site als:In August 1996 Jen and I were in Mendocino, CA celebrating our anniversary. We both got massages, and after I got mine, I noticed some of the muscles in my back were twitching. I first reported to contract during a routine examination in January 1997. My GP referred me to a neurologist who I saw in May. Because there was no muscle weakness at the time, he could only diagnose me with "benign fasciculations" (spasms for no apparent reason).In May 1998 I noticed that my left hand was getting weak. After a few months of procrastination, I went back to the neurologist who told me he was sure that I had ALS. There are no tests to confirm ALS. All they can do some procedures to rule out other causes for the symptoms. They did a couple of tests of nerve function, an MRI of my brain, and verification of heavy metals. When we returned to hear the test results, the doctor confirmed the diagnosis, and sent us to a MDA ALS clinic in San Francisco for a second opinion. They agreed.the guy had been diagnostcado bfs then had als, agoa fikei in doubtattolimpio
 
so what? 1. It is still a consensus among doctors that only in about 4 % of onsets people start with twithicng then with ALS. And usually it happens not in 2 year but in a months, quite soon.2. Note the guy had twithichg in the back which might be completely unrelated to his onset - in the hand. Should his muscles start dying in the back, he would have a leg onset. So definetely no realtionship between A and B.3. Post hoc not est preopter hoc. Everybody can get ALS with some minor chances, it was his unfortunately but we should not make that as a rule. Moreover, therer is a huge cohort of people twitching for years without ALS.Chances to get striken by a bulk of ice in the head are also rare, however I am following a LJ of a girl who was blown by the ice piece in her head. Internet makes many rear thing looking as common.
 
Twitching onset in ALS is very rare. Twitching onset in youg people is even far more rare. Benign twitching is common, most people don't even notice it. Twitching in health anxious people is even incredibly common, there are studies that show a direct correlation between the anxiety level and the intensity of fasciculations. This is a one in a million story, like someone having random headaches once in a while , and this being a sign of a brain tumor. Plus this guy did not have an EMG done, which would have shown the problem. This does not mean that everybody that twitches needs an EMG, just like not everyone with a slight headache once in a while needs a MRI to check for brain tumor. There will always be stories like that. Unfortunately noone relies on the 99,999% of the stories where a twitch is a twitch, but they all jump on those 0,001% very rare stories where a twitching person developed ALS. If you consider how old that story already is and the fact that it is still brought up shows, how rare this is.
 
I once saw a read a story that a guy got up one day and realised he had transmuted into a giant *beep*. Yeah totally he went to the doctor a week before with a headache and a week later he was a *beep*.Terrible. This is a piece of *beep* story with no sources, there is no way of detrmining the veracity of the tale. Just because something is written on the internet...gasp... Doesnt make it true.Als starting in your back? That has never happened ever. Your muscles twitch in als becauae they are dead. Fact. This imo is a troll post.Dar
 
So, I read this story too, a while back when my ALS scare was at its peak. Freaked me out like crazy at the time, too. I've since sworn off back massages, because they clearly cause ALS. Kidding. But seriously, to link this one guy's one muscle twitch two years earlier to his eventual diagnosis is a pretty extreme stretch. Especially since we don't know if he had any symptoms whatsoever in between. I'm a total hypochondriac, but even I see that this connection is more than a little iffy.
 
friendfirst apologizedo not want to scare anyone, but I'm taking it daily fasciculations, when I read a story this, like you think I am, I was too freaked out, so I made the topic to see um grain of truth in itattolimpio
 
If the incidence of ALS is ~1 in 50,000 then all this story demonstrates is how common BFS is i.e. there are enough BFS-ers that one or more will get ALS after BFS. As others have said, this indicates absolutely nothing about their being any relation whatsoever between the two. Large sample data confirms this (and n=1 isn't statistically significant, especially on the www :) ).One or more will also unfortunately get ALS after celebrating their anniversaries because a lot of people have anniversaries like a lot of people twitch.GlowGreen
 
Olimpio, you say 'grain of truth'.OK. But what kind of grain of truth you want to see? Whether it is true that we all have approx. 1 to 50 000 or so chance to have ALS? Yes, it is true. Whether we are more prone to ALS because we twitch? Nope it is NOT true because doctors still debate if those 4 % of people who started with the twitches first really have those twitches as a preceding sign or it was just a coincidence because of huge spreading of benign twitches.The fact thast you twitch increases your chances for ALS not more than the fact you have for example migraine or constipation or hay fever. The studies revealed that calf twitches are practically common, bodywide twitches are less common but also do not constitute nothing special.As I said, we should regard all cases of ALS developed after twitching as "post hoc not est propter hoc" - 'after that is not due to that", just because THE ONLY SIGN OF ALS, allowing to make a diagnosis, is a CLINICAL WEAKNESS, and until you do not have it or preceding changes on EMG allowing to suggest that therer is something really bad not only in your local nerve conduction (which happens in many orthopedical by nature neurological conditions, such as radiculitis, disc buldge or nerve compression syndrome) but also there are problems in your upper neurons operation (in the brain motor region), nobody would say "It is ALS".So twitch and do not worry more than if you would not twitch.and I do not think this post should be deleted, because really newbies have to know how they should accept information like "NNN had twitches and then ALS" - in the same way like "NNN had hay fever and then ALS" of "NNN was born and then had ALS".
 

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