Frequent Fasiculations and Anxiety

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deertracks

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Hi all,I have been having these benign fasiculations since I was 15 or 16, and I am now 21 years old. However, I recently found out about the link between fasc. and ALS (though I now do believe that fasc. are not a precursor to ALS and that I do indeed have BFS, like countless others in my family). However, I had like maybe 1 month of real hypochondria, to the point where I was having 4-5 panic attacks a day. Thinking about my family after I die. I was like...super depressed. Fast forward to now, where I am in recovery (hypochondria is like such a waste of life, really....makes me so mad at myself sometimes). However, I have HUGE acid reflux like NEVER before. Also, I breathe fine, but I can never take a full, satisfying breath, or yawn. I also wake up with a nasty sore throat...which I guess is from stomach acid coming back up my throat. I feel a lot less anxious now, but I'm wondering, is this acid reflux due to my stress over the past month...does anxiety ...."linger?" I mean it's annoying. I have to sleep on my side now so I can breathe fully. Any advice?
 
YEEEEEEEEEEEEES YES YES it is due to stress.Take some antacides, however talk with doctor first abut type and dosage, and consider that high dosage and prolonged intake could cause twitching too due to lowering Ca.Do you have any plan regarding medical and psychological treatment of your hypochondria? It is not harmless to have 4-5 PA per day.Yawning and lack of breath are casued by hyperventialtion common in anxiety, so it is also part of our burden. Breathing exercises are of real help.
 
It's so awful, this acid reflux. Makes me feel like I am sick all the time, and I never feel like my food is digested because I'm burping it up like 2 hours later -__- But yes, I will pick up some antacids. As far as the hypochondria, it is truly horrible, but I am trying to deal with it myself. I got diagnosed with a congenital disease when I was 18, and that kind of made me feel really insecure about my body and health. I was convinced I had ALS for like 1 month. And during that month, I guess the stress made me have crazy body aches, and now this acid reflux business. It is crazy how much stress can affect your body. I am trying to meditate everyday and am staying away from internet doctor.I am attending Medical School next year, but have considered not attending because of my proclivity towards hypochondria....it really has taken a toll on my life :(
 
IF you get the hypochondria under control, you'd probably make a great doctor. I think those with Health Anxiety might have really good medical instincts, sometimes too good and we overinterpret things that pertain to ourselves. I can see it so easily in others when they are somaticising, but it is hard to recognize in myself and cannot be objective. I know what you mean about hearing bad news like you did at 18. After learning of my severe scoliosis at 12 I felt defective and insecure about my health also. I viewed my future with some dread and would feel sick to my stomach when I thought of it. Primed me well.
 
Yes, it affects the whole life.I am GAD since childhood. It cost me 2 jobs and a hell of suffering, often unseen even to the family. At 37 I was an emotional wreck. So started psychotherapy and I must admit that it works. PT and meds.it works.
 
Yes, it is tough to get over. Especially because Anxiety and ALS have so many similar "symptoms." Like I'll stress out, start having more twitches, my body will ache more, I'll get a sore throat because my immune system is down and now I think I have Bulbar Onset. And now this acid reflux. It's like, very debilitating mentally to have to deal with all of this.Like before all of this, I was a great student, enjoying life, enjoying my family, looking forward to the future. But for the past two months I've kind of been a shell of a person. Smiling at social settings, and then going home and thinking I'm going to die, and being on ALS forums all night. And then googling young people who have had ALS and then I think I have it all over again.But I've decided to put this behind me. I've made the conscious decision to STOP looking up ALS altogether and to meditate twice a day, which has been helping a lot with my breathing (I was having panic attacks and my breathing is just really off). Overall, it's really horrible to have to go through this because you're wasting awesome moments of your life. Today for the first time in a long time, I looking at my books and something in my brain made me excited to study. So that is encouraging for me. Sometimes I wish I could take a sabbatical but for anyone suffering from ALS hypochondria or hypochondria in general, push yourself to go through the motions of life. The more you stay still and not doing stuff the more time you give your brain to have another anxiety attack.Stick in there guys....
 
Yes, and I wasted YEARS of my life for fear, so my ultimate opinion is that those of BFSers, who definitely have signs of anxiety dosrder, must accept that and treat this as a main disorder. There is good and proven method - psychotherapy +medicine (for hardest cases), and it helps to keep that controlled much in the way like people noe can control diabetes.I must admit however that symptoms of anxiety disorder are not similar to ALS and neurologists can confirm that. Limb onsets of ALS in vast majority of cases start as lower motoneuron deficite - rapid, painless loss of function, quickly spreaded from distal to proximal part. Sometimes onset is due to central motoneuron damage, this starts usually with extreme fatigue, pain, spasticity and spastic paralysis (like it was with Steven Hoking for example). Bulbar onset also has nothing similar to autonomous disorder in upper GIT we experience: we can swallow but feel gurgling, tightness, pain in the throat/chest, while bulbar victims just can not swallow the food and it gets out of the mouth usually (like in cases of rabies and other bulbar encephalites). We have husky voice due to swelling of throat, they have speech like after stroke (severe mumbling, 'porridge in the mouth'), or can not speak in whispering, or loudly (can not deliberately change voice pitch), etc.Our lack of medical knowledge plus overworking amygdala (alarm center of the brain) make us fearfully believe they are similar, but this is not true.
 
I used to get horrible acid reflux. So, went to the doctor and he prescribed Nexium. Took that a while and then started taking Prilosec OTC. Then I learned about gut flora and started eating Activia and got off the meds. Then, I started taking expensive probiotics and they worked alright. Recently I have discovered fermented foods and no longer take any acid reflux meds or probiotic supplements. I make beet kvass, sauerkraut, water keifer, and fermented pickles (no vinegar). You can google all these things and you will get varying recipes. If you need links to specific types of fermented foods, let me know. The problem seems to be our modern processed diet and taking to many antibiotics which kill off all the good bacteria in our intestines. Build up your good bacteria and your acid reflux should improve. Taking antacids may help temporarily, but in reality it is causing damage in the long term. Calming down and not being anxious will help too. Easier said than done. You just have to get your mind to concentrate on something else. Something you enjoy doing. I was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis about a year ago, so I know it can be tough. I didn't have MS, just BFS. Hope you find healing. God bless.Jerad
 
I have to agree with ag200, I had GERD for at least two years I couldn't eat anything because it felt like it was always stuck ...I was taking Prilosec OTC. I quit meds and started to take high dosages of probiotics with pro-zinc. I also used a lot of flaxseeds which also helps to heal your stomach lining. This allowed me to eliminated GERD.
 

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