After 1,5 years I feel I cannot stand it anymore. Today I woke up in 4 in the morning and feel the twitches in my foot. They are still here for more than 1 month, every few seconds. I know lot of you have hotspots, mainly in calves. But I have only very rare twitches in the calves. I have them iften in my back etc...but it doesnt matter.Do you sometimes feel like you cant go on? Im so sad, despair. I will never get rid of the ALS-fear...I cant concentrate on my university exams, I cant feel the joy of everything. Im on antidepressants, I feel the anxiety, though.Sorry, just needed to vent..
Feeling Hopeless and Exhausted
- Thread starter Savanturn
- Start date
I think a lot of us have been there. Are you on something separate for anxiety? I don't think an anti-depressant alone is going to cut it. Maybe you should impress upon your doctor the problems you are having. Some of them seem to think that anti-depressants are one-pill wonder-bullets, but some anti-depressants actually ramp up anxiety.Having your brain stuck on scared is a bad thing, that's for sure, and can really mess up your life. Getting calmed down is the immediate mission, whatever that takes. Comb this board, for one thing, and read other peoples' symptoms. You'll find a whole lot of people experiencing the same thing.Twitching is annoying, but not a harbinger of doom. If it has muscles, it can and will eventually twitch.It can seem like your own body is holding you hostage. What a rotten feeling. A year and a half is about when I started to turn the corner though. You begin to realize that if it was something serious it would have progressed further than twitching. Once that really sinks in, there will come a period when you don't even notice the twitching anymore. Yes, you can have flare-ups. (I'm into one three and a half years later.) The important thing to keep in mind is there are things you can do about this. You aren't helpless.
LaurentHCH
Well-known member
yes but what exactly can we do about it??? i really wonder what is going on im my body....so far not a single doctor could told me, even not the ones in the als-clinic who told me i don't have the three-letter-word. i am in the fourth month into this now and am really scared if a bad progression is still to come....the instep and the sole of my left (only one side!) foot is twitching 24/7, nonstop, always. this cannot be normal, i sometimes think they just say bfs as they don't have an explanation of what is going on....they know so little about all this, also about als.....i have been told, that an emg would see als-related fascis even months before and that a clean emg at any time means no als.....but i really doubt again......
LaurentHCH
Well-known member
blizna, does your foot also twitch in every position, regardless if you are standing, sitting, lying?
DerpyDucks
New member
Every night I wake 1 or 2 times up.Always I sit some tic in my body. This is normal because during the rest the muscles are more relaxed.He must relax. You have a clean EMG do a little time.Cannot he accept it???
Laurent, yes I feel them sometimes even when standing. I do not feel them all the time - but I can see them. They are here, but not felt. Every 5 seconds my arche of foot twitch.BTW, you are saying nobody told you that you do not have ALS - but if I remember correctly they did tell it to you in the clinic, right?
LaurentHCH
Well-known member
yes they told me clean emg and according to that no als.....they diagnosed bfs.....where exactly are your fasics in the foot? mines down there are moving every single second.It is mainly the flexor digitorum brevis and i think the tibialis posterior. I have found good pictures on the following website:i also wonder why only the left one is doing this *beep*....
What can you do? There are lots of things. Try to stay physically active. That will increase your confidence in your body. Get absorbed in something -- other than noticing twitches. Read posts here so you can see that your symptoms are no different from everyone else's here, certainly no worse. Understand that you DO have an anxiety problem, and the crazy-making feelings and thoughts are much more likely to be coming from that than some rare horrible physical disease. Anxiety can easily do all of these bad things that are happening to you. Also give yourself permission to twitch. You DO have something physical going on as well, just something poorly understood. None of us will probably ever know what is at the bottom of our twitches, buzzes, tingles, weakness, etc. Accept that. Chasing the dx will-o-the-wisp only keeps you focused on your problem. Accept the fact that this is just the way you're wired. It is NORMAL for you. It is your reaction that is the problem.There are people with a phobia about spiders. Lucky for them, there aren't that many spiders crawling around on the average person. When you get a phobia about a disease, about twitching, then it's like a person with arachnophobia being immersed 24/7 in a tub of spiders! Sucks, to be sure. You can't even brush off a twitch. There's no place to run, because you're stuck in the very thing that tortures you: your own body.But you have to break the link between twitch and ***. Your mind is making connections that are not valid because it that mistaken connection was branded into your brain cells the moment you read "twitching" on some poorly written disease site. There is so much emotional power behind that your brain has probably physically changed to forge that damning link (read about neuroplasticity). Its a glitch, a programming bug in your head. You need to reprogram. Tell yourself, "there my brain goes again... it's wrong." Your brain is where the problem is, not your twitching appendage.Most of all, just hang in there. Time will help. Eventually, you say "hmmm... shouldn't I have been dead six months ago? I can still walk even!" You start to get your confidence back. Then you don't even notice the twitching, unless you have a bad spell.Another tactic is just to accept it. Say "okay, so let's say I have IT... did I expect to live forever? I give up. I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to enjoy today in the body I have, with all of its wonderful capabilities. I could get paralyzed or killed in a car wreck on the way home. Tomorrow is uncertain. But today, twitchy or not, I can walk, I can even dance. If I can't six months from now because of some disease, that's just the way it is. There's nothing I can do about it. But I CAN enjoy today. Just today."That gets you out of "tomorrow," which is the scary place we tend to live. I know what you think, am I right? "Yeah, it's not too bad NOW, but this could be the beginning of the long slide..." Well,that's a game you can never win. Even if you get a clean test, you can still say that. (I never got tested myself... too chicken, plus I knew in my heart it would not make too much difference. I've seen too many people here freaking even AFTER clean tests. Because this is not a rational fear. Rational reasons not to be afraid will take you only so far.) Live in today. I bought my wife a puppy a couple of years ago because I "knew" I wasn't going to be there for her. Pretty sad. This year I bought myself a puppy because I hope I will be around.
) occasins: yes you are right of course, but its so hard 
LaurentHCH
Well-known member
no i don't blizna...and yes it could also be the same muscle....but when i twitch there i also automatically twitch in the sole......