Chronic Muscle Twitching: 3 Years On

[ckayHotshotfreshman]

Hi,
I occasionally come back to this website just to see if there are any breakthroughs being reported. I am a 45 yo male who has been twitching for nearly 3 years. Mostly in my right leg, but they pop up everywhere. I notice
that when lying in bed with only my usual nonstop calf twitching going on that if I simply change position I will have some twitches in another are for about
a minute or so and then they stop.

I've tried limiting my caffeine, taking magnesium, drinking gatorade, those
sorts of things. Nothing seems to have an effect one way or the other. I have never had any sort of tests other than a basic blood test.

After this amount of time I'm fairly sure I don't have one of those dreaded other things sometimes mentioned here.

My question I guess is: Should I have some tests done?

Could I have Lyme Disease or some sort of Thyroid problem for 3
years without some other symptoms popping up? Of late the twitching
has gotten worse and is driving me crazy.

I get the impression that the average Healthcare provider has probably never even heard of BFS...

Thanks

Mark

 

[Fritillaries]

Mark,

It's great to hear that people after 3 years are still doing well. This in itself is a testimonial to the benign nature of this condition. Thanks for sharing !

As you are aware, your symptoms are identical to many people on this board, myself included. Your doctor may not have ever heard of BFS, but that is not important or relevant. What's important is that they are benign fascilations.

So yes, get a EMG/NCS test done, I'm no Dr., but you clearly have BFS in my opinion -- but you need a neurologist to give an official diagnosis. Also, get the Lyme test (by a reputable lab like LabCorp) and every reasonable chemistry assay available for screening disorders that manefest neurologically.

A prudent primary care physician should always refer anyone who has apparent neurological symptoms to a neurologist and will follow to make sure these tests are performed. There are a whole lot of other conditions besides BFS, ALS, and MS that can cause twitching that must be eliminated.

There are also four major benefits to getting an official diagnosis that I can think of that will help not only you, but all of us..

1) It will give your doctors important baseline of health and neurological information so in the future, if you have a problem, such as a chronic illness, nerve injury, muscle injury, or neurological condition, they can determine the actual extent of your disease or injury by comparing your historical records to your present records.

2) If they ever develop a medication for treating benign fascilations, having it diagnosed formerly may give you an advantage of candidacy perhaps priority to participate in field research or clinical trials of a candidate drug.

3) The more people that report this condition, the more urgency for research and drug development.

4) The larger collection of known benign fascilation sufferers, the higher the chances are for a statistical anlaysis to determine a root cause.

Good luck
dranyab