Seeking Advice: Overweight and Active

[Kawaiitchi]

Hi Everyone,I'm looking for a cause and possibly some comfort - and a lot of what I'm reading here on this site seems very familiar to what I've been experiencing, I'm hoping someone can offer me a little advice.Some background: I am 34, female and about a hundred pounds overweight. I have an active lifestyle and go to the gym for weight lifting and cardio about three times per week. I do work at a computer, so I work with my hands and wrists daily. I've also been an anxiety sufferer and insomniac since I was a teen - and I keep prescribed Xanax in the house to treat this when necessary.About a year and a half ago, I broke my leg - and I noticed while I was recovering that my hands were shaking occasionally when I held them in one fixed position - such as sitting at the keyboard at a computer with hands poised to type. I also noticed it frequently stopped when I lifted my hands up, so it seemed to be at least partially caused by pressure on the underside of my arms. I consulted my doctor - who believed the tremors were the result of damage to the tendons in my wrists either from the fall or from having to drag myself about the house on hands and knees or crutches - and I learned to live with it as it's really not too bad a symptom.Several months later, I became somewhat 'twitchey'... I'd notice tiny, random twitches maybe in a finger, in a leg muscle, in a shoulder muscle. But they were solitary twitches and relatively easy to ignore so again I didn't worry too terribly much.Three days ago, on Christmas Eve - the muscle beneath my left thumb began to twitch. At first I dismissed it, but it didn't stop. The twitch is very persistent, sometimes fast enough to look like a tremor because it causes my whole thumb to move, sometimes subsiding to an occasional nuisance. I get at most a few minutes of respite before it starts up again. It hasn't responded to heat, massage, mineral ice or increased sleep... nothing I've tried. Yesterday morning I called my doctor in a panic, and she was quick to reassure me that this was an annoyance but nothing serious. She suggested I take Advil and my Xanax, keep massaging the area and try to relax. She believes it's just a combination of my usual anxiety mixed with Christmas stress and said that muscle spasms can sometimes take weeks to subside. I did as she suggested, and also went to the gym for a nice long workout just to prove to myself that I didn't have any muscle weakness anywhere - and I don't seem to.I know it's only been three days, but I'm completely freaked out and terrified even after my doctors reassurances. Could this be BFS? Should I be pushing harder for a diagnosis? Or do I really just need to chill out? I'm so scared that at best I'll have to live the rest of my life with this annoying, twitching thumb and at worst I've got something well... a whole lot worse.Thanks so much for your time,Mrswhatsit

 

[austignite2020]

sounds just like BFS. hot spots most likely won't be going forever... could be a day, a week, or a month, but I bet it goes away and you'll have NOTHING to worry about. Enjoy the holiday.

 

[CrazyJace]

Hi Mrs. Whatsit, It's been almost two months since this post..how are you doing? During the holidays I was experiencing some similar twitching symptoms and they scared the heck outta me as they went form an incessant one in my calf to all over the place. When you really pay attention, your body can definitely engage in some weird ticks and whatnot! It drive me to the point of having an EMG which came out normal. I never had weakness either. I did have a different size calf muscle on the twitchy size which freaked me out, but apparently we are not symmetrical. Just when I have been feeling back to normal and mearning to not pay attention to muscle twitching (my calf has since stopped incidentally; it's the one that drove me to the internet thinking I was dying of a terrible disease with a new baby I was at home full time with and nursing) the area between my nose and mouth are twitching here and there. It almost feels like a quick quiver or something. And it does it occassionally after I contort my lips around - yes, that whole testing thing we do to make sure it's nothing major! Anyway, I haven't been on here in a bit and read your thread. Hope you are feeling better and not letting the twitches get to you too much!

 

[Kawaiitchi]

Hi Boo,I've been doing so-so. A left thumb twitch I had a Christmastime ceased after three days, and I put it out of my head until it returned in February - only on the right side this time. Two days of that. Then two weeks later a day on the left, two days off - and another day on. This is all in addition to the all over occasional body twitches. However I don't have any bizzare sensations really, no weakness (other than when my anxiety convinces me I'm feeling weakness) and I can excercise all right. Basically I can live my life, the only thing really slowing me up are my contstant thoughts of impending doom.So alot of thumb twitching lately has had me sunk pretty deep into anxiety right now. I haven't called my doctor, because I feel really stupid pestering them about what is probably just serious anxiety disorder. A few people on here have suggested to me that I probably don't even have BFS, just way too much anxiety induced adrennaline running through my system.In my head, I've started joking to myself that all the anxiety has given me 'adrennaline poisoning' - is that even a real thing?So I took the plunge and made myself an appointment with a psychiatrist instead, my first appointment is this coming Monday. I need to learn to believe that my body is okay, my head might just need some adjustment.Still wake up each day dreading that stupid thumb twitch though...Best wishes and prayers to you, and thanks for checking in. Having a place to vent and share really does help.-Whatsit

 

[MarioMasher]

Oh you most certainly can get adrenaline poisoning. Well, not in the sense that it will kill you, but in the sense that the human body just isn't designed to have adrenaline pumping through it 24/7. Adrenaline was only designed to be a short term boost to your body. You start taking something that powerful, and start coursing it through your system 24 hours a day, and who knows how your nervous system will react. It's no wonder so many BFSers wind up with fried nervous systems.Good luck with the psychiatrist. Let us know how it goes. I had two sessions with an anxiety counselor and I found them to be extraordinarily helpful.