Hi allI am still really happy after my neuro appointment and although I still have to go through my EMG I am feeling positive for the first time in nearly 12 weeks.Unfortunately though the twitching and pain are still there, my wife seems to think that because I had a good Neuro exam that everything is ok now, but I still have all this constant twitching.Anyway I have one more final question, and no its not going to be like before when I ask a question every day, I am going to relax this weekend and get away from it all.I have noticed that when I flex (tense) my calfs they react differently, my left one I can flex for ages and its nice and hard, however when I flex my right calf muscle after about 10 seconds or so it kind of un flexes itself and it’s a real strain to keep it flexed. It also is defiantly not harder than the left one.I am thinking that it maybe because I used to play a lot of football when I was younger and I was left footed so maybe my left leg is stronger and that’s why.Does anyone else have difficulty flexing there calfs in this way?Thanks allChris
Neuro Exam: Still Twitching & Pain
- Thread starter ChrisUK88
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CHRIS, I DONT AND I WONT (but for YOU) post on this board anymore- I moved to another board thats FAB- but IT DOEST MATTER WHAT TWITCH HAPPENS WHERE- and HOW U FEEL once your neuro tell you "its benign, no ALS" you have to live w/ that and just think "*beep* my body is weird", eventually as mine did for a while it will re wire itself- or maybe not- I thought Id be over it 11 months into this- its NO WHERE like it was tho I get tongue "tingles" but I chalk it up to anxiety because tonight-- I went out for a friends birthday- I took my klonapin had a few drinks, ok a lot of drinks and I partied and I was not disabled, nor did I feel weak or feel my twitches-I think Im a big believer that anxiety FUELS THE FIRE.RELAX enjoy you WIFE- Im getting baby FEVER again , SLAP ME!!!!!!Love ya Chris, Again welcome BFS or BS And ANXIETY 
(I'll post openly for YOU )
(I'll post openly for YOU )Chris we are not symetrical people ...you mentioned that your neuro wanted to explore the possibilty of a trapped nerve...that could be the problem. You'll find with this condition you are highly tuned to any changes in your body because of an anxious state of mind. So your going to have tons of days were something feels amiss or not right....what you have to say to yourself ....just get on with it and quit moaning. Find a local crown green bowling club and take it up its the best thing i ever did...if not try something else 
2 thoughts - I have posted on both.This first post below is on a NYTimes article on Stretching....just read it and understand how much our bodies react to all the stretching and prodding and poking etc....Second, I have posted it, and its also on the main Aboutbfs page under articles...the Mayo paper lists all the people that have different issues and sensations surrounding BFS. Many have tingling, exercise intolerance...etc. There are many of us on here that have some weakness/fatigue/muscle burning...etc. I am also waiting on a new EMG that I get in 2 weeks...BUT, a normal neuro exam is the most important part of any diagnoses...by far.Anyway, read my previous post below on the NYT article...especially the bold section...its pretty amazing that you can strech one leg, and the other leg will weaken in some weird sympathetic response....the mind and body do some crazy things. If we sit and focus on it, its going to probably act even weirder. (by we I mean you and me, since I still do it, even with a clean EMG 6 months ago)Recent NYT article on Stretching and WeaknessPostby MPLS1970 on Mon November 3rd, 2008 7:39 amFor those of you with the sense of weakness....read this Oct 31 NYTimes article on stretching. Notice that just by stretching you can weaken your muscles by 30%. With all the stretching, flexing, pushing, focusing, flexing, testing you (we - trust me I am testing and flexing my forearm and whole arm CONSTANTLY) just imagine what you are doing to that muscle....I would guess you are 'self-fatiguing' that muscle with all the futzing around. Its easier to read if you click the link. But I cut and pasted it below too. ... yt&emc=rssStretching: The TruthArticle Tools Sponsored ByBy GRETCHEN REYNOLDSPublished: October 31, 2008WHEN DUANE KNUDSON, a professor of kinesiology at California State University, Chico, looks around campus at athletes warming up before practice, he sees one dangerous mistake after another. “They’re stretching, touching their toes. . . . ” He sighs. “It’s discouraging.”“There is a neuromuscular inhibitory response to static stretching,” says Malachy McHugh, the director of research at the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The straining muscle becomes less responsive and stays weakened for up to 30 minutes after stretching, which is not how an athlete wants to begin a workout.THE RIGHT WARM-UP should do two things: loosen muscles and tendons to increase the range of motion of various joints, and literally warm up the body. When you’re at rest, there’s less blood flow to muscles and tendons, and they stiffen. “You need to make tissues and tendons compliant before beginning exercise,” Knudson says.A well-designed warm-up starts by increasing body heat and blood flow. Warm muscles and dilated blood vessels pull oxygen from the bloodstream more efficiently and use stored muscle fuel more effectively. They also withstand loads better. One significant if gruesome study found that the leg-muscle tissue of laboratory rabbits could be stretched farther before ripping if it had been electronically stimulated — that is, warmed up.To raise the body’s temperature, a warm-up must begin with aerobic activity, usually light jogging. Most coaches and athletes have known this for years. That’s why tennis players run around the court four or five times before a match and marathoners stride in front of the starting line. But many athletes do this portion of their warm-up too intensely or too early. A 2002 study of collegiate volleyball players found that those who’d warmed up and then sat on the bench for 30 minutes had lower backs that were stiffer than they had been before the warm-up. And a number of recent studies have demonstrated that an overly vigorous aerobic warm-up simply makes you tired. Most experts advise starting your warm-up jog at about 40 percent of your maximum heart rate (a very easy pace) and progressing to about 60 percent. The aerobic warm-up should take only 5 to 10 minutes, with a 5-minute recovery. (Sprinters require longer warm-ups, because the loads exerted on their muscles are so extreme.) Then it’s time for the most important and unorthodox part of a proper warm-up regimen, the Spider-Man and its counterparts.“TOWARDS THE end of my playing career, in about 2000, I started seeing some of the other guys out on the court doing these strange things before a match and thinking, What in the world is that?” says Mark Merklein, 36, once a highly ranked tennis player and now a national coach for the United States Tennis Association. The players were lunging, kicking and occasionally skittering, spider-like, along the sidelines. They were early adopters of a new approach to stretching.While static stretching is still almost universally practiced among amateur athletes — watch your child’s soccer team next weekend — it doesn’t improve the muscles’ ability to perform with more power, physiologists now agree. “You may feel as if you’re able to stretch farther after holding a stretch for 30 seconds,” McHugh says, “so you think you’ve increased that muscle’s readiness.” But typically you’ve increased only your mental tolerance for the discomfort of the stretch. The muscle is actually weaker.Stretching muscles while moving, on the other hand, a technique known as dynamic stretching or dynamic warm-ups, increases power, flexibility and range of motion. Muscles in motion don’t experience that insidious inhibitory response. They instead get what McHugh calls “an excitatory message” to perform.Dynamic stretching is at its most effective when it’s relatively sports specific. “You need range-of-motion exercises that activate all of the joints and connective tissue that will be needed for the task ahead,” says Terrence Mahon, a coach with Team Running USA, home to the Olympic marathoners Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor. For runners, an ideal warm-up might include squats, lunges and “form drills” like kicking your buttocks with your heels. Athletes who need to move rapidly in different directions, like soccer, tennis or basketball players, should do dynamic stretches that involve many parts of the body. “Spider-Man” is a particularly good drill: drop onto all fours and crawl the width of the court, as if you were climbing a wall. (For other dynamic stretches, see the sidebar below.)Even golfers, notoriously nonchalant about warming up (a recent survey of 304 recreational golfers found that two-thirds seldom or never bother), would benefit from exerting themselves a bit before teeing off. In one 2004 study, golfers who did dynamic warm- up exercises and practice swings increased their clubhead speed and were projected to have dropped their handicaps by seven strokes over seven weeks.Controversy remains about the extent to which dynamic warm-ups prevent injury. But studies have been increasingly clear that static stretching alone before exercise does little or nothing to help. The largest study has been done on military recruits; results showed that an almost equal number of subjects developed lower-limb injuries (shin splints, stress fractures, etc.), regardless of whether they had performed static stretches before training sessions. A major study published earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control, on the other hand, found that knee injuries were cut nearly in half among female collegiate soccer players who followed a warm-up program that included both dynamic warm-up exercises and static stretching. (For a sample routine, visit .) And in golf, new research by Andrea Fradkin, an assistant professor of exercise science at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, suggests that those who warm up are nine times less likely to be injured.“It was eye-opening,” says Fradkin, formerly a feckless golfer herself. “I used to not really warm up. I do now.”You’re Getting Warmer: The Best Dynamic StretchesThese exercises- as taught by the United States Tennis Association’s player-development program – are good for many athletes, even golfers. Do them immediately after your aerobic warm-up and as soon as possible before your workout.STRAIGHT-LEG MARCH(for the hamstrings and gluteus muscles)Kick one leg straight out in front of you, with your toes flexed toward the sky. Reach your opposite arm to the upturned toes. Drop the leg and repeat with the opposite limbs. Continue the sequence for at least six or seven repetitions.SCORPION(for the lower back, hip flexors and gluteus muscles)Lie on your stomach, with your arms outstretched and your feet flexed so that only your toes are touching the ground. Kick your right foot toward your left arm, then kick your leftfoot toward your right arm. Since this is an advanced exercise, begin slowly, and repeat up to 12 times.HANDWALKS(for the shoulders, core muscles, and hamstrings)Stand straight, with your legs together. Bend over until both hands are flat on the ground. “Walk” with your hands forward until your back is almost extended. Keeping your legs straight, inch your feet toward your hands, then walk your hands forward again. Repeat five or six times. G.R.
EmeraldEve
Member
hey! It will be ok i think i have had almost same problem 
and i dont have ALS or NMT
and i dont have ALS or NMTAllGoodHere
Well-known member
When I flex my calves for that long they cramp. I'd rather they twitch. Switch?To answer the question though - this lack of symmetry is well-documented among all types of people -even in the ambidextrous. Some of it has to do with body alignment, the complementary action of the muscles, old injuries, on and on....in other words try this on anybody - most will be unequal in some major muscle group. Ask anybody who does a lot of bodywork (physical therapy of some sort) about this. And hey, your wife is probably relieved because she feels like she can let some of her worry go.............have a good weekend!
Chris, I have the exact opposite effect in my calves. My right calf, which twitched like yours in 2007, is real hard and very defined when I flex it, my left calf which has had very little issues, is like blubber when I try to flex it, the muscle feels and is strong, but its not hard. Go figure
Hi Chris,My right calf is a lot thinner than my left and it worried me when I first started twitching. It's a comlpletely different shape when I flex it. It doesn't worry me now because after 8 months of twitching with no weakness I figure it's normal. My left arm is thinner than my right but I'm right handed and I kayak a lot which puts more pressure on my dominant side. I've wondered about us brits driving stick shift cars - surely a stiff clutch pedal develops the left calf more if you drive a lot! I've googled this a lot because it used to worry me too but I've come to the conclusion that a symmetrical person wouldn't be normal!