Three Month Mark: Strength Up

[JoggingCub]

Today is the three month mark. Strength has perhaps increased, definately no decrease. Fasciculations are reduced but still exist, esp. in some hot spots. EMG was clean (one month ago) and I passed two neuro exams as well.Yet, one arm (not the dominant one) is just wierd. Occasionally I get subtle resting tremors in one shoulder esp. at night, notice them in bed. After three consec. days of push ups my shoulder will burn, my forearm will feel tight, and sometimes heavy. There is sometimes a preception of weakness of the arm, but no functional weakness. Pluse is easily felt when merely resting that arm on the table. Difficult to describe all the wierdness. After a few days of no exercise, arm is normal again.I waited three weeks to see an orthopedist, then today 2 hours in his office, for five minutes of his time. He had no idea. Is pawning me off to a PT now. Maybe the PT will check me for throacic outliet syndrome, probably a waste of time though . . . I hate this crap, sometimes it just makes me anxious and then I still worry about the A word . . . Someone please respond.

 

[simonw00]

I have had generalised BFS for over 18 months but have had particular isues with my R calf now for these past 6 months or more. The symptoms dn't sound exactly the same as yours but the point is that I do haev localised symptoms that differ from the generalised BFS trouble. It is hard not to focus on this particular body site ansd to assume the worst but your clinical exam and EMG would have detected anything significant.RegardsSimon

 

[Krackersones]

If something is going on with your nerves to make them twitch it can also cause other symptoms. This seems pretty obvious to me. The conclusion that you can't jump to is that ALS is the only thing out there that effects the nerves. If you do extensive googling like I have (and I do not recommend it), you will find that there are lots of other nerve conditions (many not fully understood and not life altering) that cause twitching and the other stuff people describe here like soreness, tightness, crampiness, tremors, etc. If these types of symptoms were not so common to anything that effects the nerves, neurologists would be better able to give people a diagnosis. As it stands, most of these nerve conditions are clinical diagnoses in the sense that you have to look at the big picture over time and that has to be done by someone who is highly specialized and has seen a lot of different things. It is a very frustrating situation and probably why this board exists. Understanding what I just explained helps me not jump to a conclusion that something sinister is going on just because I experience something that is new. I think of it as not new and just further evidence (which I did not need anyway because I already knew it) that something is not totally "normal" with my nerves BUT having something not totally "normal" with your nerves can just be annoying but not lifethreatening.

 

[JoggingCub]

Thank you Jro & Simon for replying! You two are SAINTS!The more I read about thoracic outlet syndrome, the more my wierdo arm problem makes sense to me, but then again so did the A word disease. At times I believe that my twitches and wierdo arm are two different things, as the vast majority of my twitches are not in the wierdo arm.Wiero arm is in quite a bit of pain today and I take solace in that, since its just too much pain to be the A word disease )

 

[Krackersones]

I should also add that once you have a symptom like twitching that is not fully explained you are almost certainly going to be oversensitive to every other symptom/sensation you experience in your body whether it is or is not related. It is hard to not sit there and try to analyze it looking for a connection to make it all make sense. I have learned after almost two years of this that trying to analyze my symptoms gets me nowhere and just wastes my time. Thus I try to stop myself from over analyzing but as you can see I am usually not very successful. If the symptom/sensation becomes a major life issue rather than a "clue" you think you've discovered, I think it is then that it deserves focus but until then it should be ignored to the extent possible.