Convincing Symptoms Without Seeing a Doctor?

[KnoopyMapcase]

Just curious how many others out there are convinced they have BFS based on the symptoms they're experiencing (or NOT experiencing, in the case of weakness) but have not visited a doctor, at least not about your symptoms?

I know that generally speaking it is always best to go to a doctor with any type of symptoms, but there are some situations that make this decision more difficult. Mine started out with insurance issues due to a recent job change, although some of the folks on this board had excellent suggestions for possibly getting around this. Instead of pursuing them, I eventually decided not to go to the doctor at all, and instead have gone to therapy and worked on reducing my anxiety level.

This has worked rather well for me, with even days at a time of no twitching (or twitching that is so minor I don't notice it at all, I'm not sure which it is). My anxiety level has gone done considerably, and except for the occasional "dark moment" when I'm convinced the worst is happening, I'm really doing pretty well with it all. From what I've seen on this board, this seems to be about as effective as those who've gone to the doctor or even a neuro and received a clean EMG.

Although 90% or my motivation behind this approach is that I'm so certain this is BFS based on my experience and symptoms that I don't feel I NEED to do anything else, I'm sure there's a small part of me that, like the doctor in the article link on this site, just doesn't want to know if it is the incurable three letters that we're all afraid of.

So is anyone else opting to handle this in the same way? I'd be interested to hear how you're doing if so. Are you able to control your anxiety, and does this reduce your twitching like it does mine? How many "dark moments" do you have, and do you think you'd have less if you went to a doctor and got a formal diagnosis? What are your reasons for not doing so?

On a related note, I'd like to sincerly thank everyone who posts here, and especially the webmaster/owner of this site. I can not begin to express how helpful this site has been, and how much peace of mind I've found here at my darkest moments.

 

[usysparawl]

I too have seen two doctor's (one was a neuro) but no emg. I just don't fell compelled to have one, at least not yet, so if you don't feel compelled to see a DR., good for you! My brother twitches and he has never seen a DR. He asked his cardio doc about it once, and they guy told him no worries, so he blew it off. He told me, "I will worry if I ever develop weakness." Well, he hasn't in several years.

Peg

 

[KnoopyMapcase]

Thanks to both of you for your encouragement. This has worked for me pretty well, so I'm almost afraid to mess with it too much. I hit my three month mark this week, which for some reason was the point I decided I wasn't going to worry anymore when this first started. Actually, I have had a periodic eye twitch starting almost a year ago, along with some of the strange buzzing and other symptoms I've now grown used to, so this may have been going on for much longer than three months.

Anyway, good luck to both of you, and thanks again for the positive thoughts!

-Robbie

 

[alyLeoNCali]

Ah, Robbie, so you have a real name! I always chuckle when I see Xapno M. Marx Brothers fan, are ya?

My family doc pointed out that if I do think I have fasciculations, then I should go to a neurologist, "because BFS is a diagnosis of exclusion." But I just don't see a need to go that next step, at this time, because I'm no worse than when this BFS biz started more than 4 months ago. My symptoms are just like those posted by so many others on this site, and to my knowledge they ALL have gotten clean test results. So I'm sittin tight.

As of a few days ago, I have eliminated red wine, grapes, and tea from my diet, just to test the remote possibility that the especially high levels of tannins in them is adversely affecting my magnesium utilization on a cellular level. (See recent thread of GaryM and others.) But who knows how long I'd need to keep up this dietary restriction in order to see any change, if there even IS a connection. Oh, yeah, chocolate has magnesium, so I'm not overly deprived.

Thanks to all of you on this board who give of your time to support/share. We all benefit from this collective wisdom. It's not wasted time if you're helping someone avoid any of that gut-wrenching fear that's common among the newbies.

 

[KnoopyMapcase]

I'm a huge Marx Brothers fan, as I'm assuming you are since you caught that pretty obscure reference! Have you seen the Woody Allen movie (for some reason I can't remember which one it is, but I think it was Crimes and Misdemeanors) where he's in an anhedonic state he can't get out of until he wanders into a movie theater and sees Duck Soup, which snaps him right out of it? I had pretty much the same experience many years ago, so I tend to turn to the Brothers in times of stress or depression. And as you probably are all too familiar with, the start of my BFS was very scary...

My experience with this stuff has made me a firm believer that although there's obviously some biological or physical component to BFS, stress plays as great or a greater role. At least mine works this way. I don't feel like I'm alone with the stress component when I see those who've been diagnosed by a Dr. or Neuro yet still worry about ALS obsessively, even after numerous clean EMGs. It seems like nothing really makes people feel better ultimately but time without experiencing weakness. This being the case, I'd rather just concentrate on reducing my stress, which has allowed me to have greater and greater amounts of time without twitching (or at least without twitching I notice). This of course brings up the age-old philosophical question - if a calf muscle twitches in the woods but nobody notices it, did it really twitch?

Please let me know if your diet change helps with your symptoms any. I intially started drinking two huge glasses of milk, three glasses of tonic water, eating a bannana, and about half a jar of peanuts every day for a few weeks - all this did was cause me to gain weight with no reduction in symptoms! And of course the extra weight made me less tolerant to exercise, which led to more stress, which led to more twitching, which led to more milk and nuts...

-Robbie