Sleepless Night With Fasciculations

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LaurentHCH

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it s another sleepless night, my fascics in the left foot (instep/sole/ankle) and both lower and upper calves fire 24/7, more and more.you may say go to a psych-doctor. i was. i even went to a popular mental healer today and yoga and meditation. nothing helps me since i seem to have a changed pattern since xmas until which i was much better after a period of more random generalised twitches, except the foot which was already there. i feel this crap ALL the time, holds me away from sleep and scares me up like hell (from being it als of course)..i cannot stand this anymore, life has become a suffering....i am so tired of it....
 
Try icing the areas down, the lack of sleep is only making the fasics worse, trust me I have been there. Wrap you foot and calves in ice packs, it will help you fall asleep. I did this for 18 months, my calf fired up in a big way about a month ago, now I am back to ice on it at night. This is my routine, when I lay down for the night, I wrap I big Ice pack around my calf with an ace bandage, then I read until I start to dose off, I then take the pack off and I can sleep easier. When it is really bad I just leave it on all night. Give it a shot. Also you do not have ALS, BFS does not fit the pattern at all other than the muscle twitching. You have to sleep, try sleep aids as well, I used Ambien Cr 6.25 mg every night for about a year.
 
Yes, a sleep aid would be good. I find 1/2 ativan on bad nites lets me sleep and slows the twitches. Do you have anything you can take to help you fall asleep?Linda
 
I know it seems as if it'll never end, but trust us all, it gets better. Stay away from coffee, and anything else that might keep you awake, including chocolate. We've all been scared the way you are, and we've all gotten through it. It may take several months for the symptoms to ease off, though, so it's best to laugh about it. In some ways, this can make us appreciate what we have a lot more. You might find yourself having better relationships with your parents and family as time goes by, because you won't take things for granted. Take care, and remember that we're here for you.
 
Yeah I understand how you feel, I was the same a few weeks ago, but mainly because I was so stupid and read the book "Fasciculations as an initialfeature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis" - that wasnt smart, however the book is not so negative as it sounds.Anyway, I tried to take iron and I twitch less.
 
Hi Savanturn,I also was reading on a forum of fascics as first symptom, I think you also were on this forumthere was a guy who said (kiefer dad or something) that twitches can occur even for years until weakness starts, that he knows a lot of stories about thatDo you know anything about that, is this true???
 
That is true ONLY FOR SMALL percentage 6-14% of ALS sufferers - it is mentioned in many posts here. Recent literature (Eisen) says, that it also depends on age, when younger individuals have more likely BFS. There is great artitcle in that book (availiable online) but some information there could scare some of us, so I wont post. The figure 6-14% know every BFS patient who is scared of ALS, so I hope nobody will be scared after reading it.
 
please stop such scaring information here.......or please mention that those 6-14 percent would have changes in their emg if the fascics were due to als at any time.......
 
and i thought that most of them had a sort of weakness that would also have been detected in the clincal test and of course in the emg!!!???
 
Laurent, calm down please. Lostboy was reffering to one story and I told him (via PM) that it was NOT true - the person who spread this stories DOESNT have ALS - he has twitching and do not want to believe its BFS. He is the one who writes on the ALS forums and speak about years.According to mentioned 6%, those are exceptions, from the literature - the weakness came approx. in a few months.Say ALS incidence is 3/100 000. That is 30 people out of 1 milion , 300 people out of 10 milions. And then make 6% of 300 - 18. 18 people out of 10 000 000.. also its 9 people ouf of 5 000 000...add your age and the number decrease much more..and mainly, add clean EMG and you will be in extreme low numbers.
 
But you are not of them. Those unfortunate cases are usually in typical ALS onset age group. You have the same as we all have here - BFS. Stop searching and finding exceptions. Do you have headaches on only one side? I do and its more typicall for brain tumour than "simple" headache. There is always something what you can be worried about..You feed anxiety, anxiety makes your muscles more sensitive to nerve impulses and you will twitch more.You were better for 10 days - the same book (and Eisen is famous ALS researcher) says, that benign fasciculations have times where they are better or disappear.Stop researching...you are still very worried but look, its the middle of January and you are still OK. Try to dont use Internet for a few days..it helped me a lot 1 year ago.
 
only the benign ones get better blizna or also the als ones, according to your book?i now (since 3 days) have cramps in both feet.....do you also have this sometimes?
 
Laurent, there is no sense in still searching if this could happen. I believe that if you ask them, every ALS patient will tell you another. I do not have crams, I have never had them before and never after this whole thing started. So Im not the right person to ask. But from posts of other people here I know lot of them have cramps.Please, stay away from the this site, from Google for a few days and you will see. Many people did that and was better. Including myself. It is very stressful even if you dont think so - reading about others symptoms, scaring when read new negative info...try it, its very hard but try it.
 
i take magnesium for months now, eating 1-2 bananas a day......doesn't help....my sort of cramps really are in the sole of the foot....it is like a pulling and lasts several seconds......
 

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