Twitching & Stress: 3 Months Later

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clampsunsun

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I have been reading on this website for a few months, well ever since I had my first twitch that turned into tons of twitches and never stopped. This was almost 3 months ago. I used to work out WAY TOO MUCH and was majorly over doing it before this happened, plus I was under a TON OF STRESS at work, at home (my kitty passed away unexpectedly after surgery and this was the second kitty I lost in 14 months). I had both of them for a very long time, 16 years and 15 years, but to lose them was/is devastating. Always worried about my job, I work for the government and they are cutting us left and right as well as cutting our salaries. Anyway, I was getting these weird pin *beep* sensations on my chest, they happened a few times over a few weeks, just about 5 minutes each. Then one night I got into bed and felt them on my legs, I typed into Google, "pin *beep* sensations" ( i know the dreaded google search) and up came Fibromyalgis. Well shoot, at this point I would much rather have that be my biggest fear right? Anyway, major stress, feeling super run down and on the 3rd day of my "staycation" in July and in the middle of the night I awoke with pin *beep* like pain all over my legs. I started freaking out and actually thought to myself, "what if this spreads all over my body, what the hell is going on here?" I woke my husband up and in a few hours time, the pin pricks turned into twitches, and low and behold, my worry came true! They were all over my body!! Whee!!I actually notice that now I mainly get them in my calves and legs but I do get them "hot spots" on my arms, and upper body occasionally. On August 22, about 6 weeks after the twitching started I did an EMG/Nerve conductor test and it was clean. In fact, my neuro has worked with ALS patients considerably, and said, "you do not have ALS." But then he made the mistake of saying, we will keep this test as a "baseline" to compare it if you start getting other symptoms. Hmm, so what does that mean, I don't have it now, but I could in a few months? Really? I mean like I need that added stress of waiting for the next symptom? I seem to ride this emotional/scared/fearful rollercoaster pretty frequently, one day I am thinking, it is okay, I am healthy, maybe this will go away soon and then the next day something strange happens, i notice a weird feeling, I feel weak or more tired, my forearm is feeling like it is weak/tendonits (probably from using this darned laptop in bed every night obsessively trying to find a reason for my twitching!). I started getting feelings of weakness behind my knees and in my arms one night and COMPLETELY freaked out. I was up all night crying and sure I had you know what. Then I emailed the neuro and since then I had an MRI of my brain and my neck, both clean. The only thing that came up so far in tests is that I have REALLY LOW FERRITIN, (iron stores) and low vitamin D. I of course was praying it is the low ferritin, but I have been taking massive doses of that for months and still here I am twitching as I type this in bed. The weakness is weird, I feel weak, I really do, but I can still lift weights, work out and do everything, but I know I feel weak feelings in my legs/arms. It is something I have never felt before so I wonder if my anxiety is making it worse. Anyway, I think I am typing too much because the computer screen is flipping up and down like I better stop. Maybe I went past the limit on here! I appreciate this site and any advice, support anyone can give. I really can't believe this could just happen, one day we are all normal and the next we are twitching with no real reason or cure? I suppose many things in life have no explanation, but I sure feel obsessed to try to figure one out. I hope everyone out there is going to get some sleep tonight. :)
 
I can relate! Thanks for posting your story. Mine was set off because of way too much excersise in combination with work stresses. And I completely understanding the weakness you describe. This is just one of many symptoms for me but it could be worse :D) Take care.
 
Hi there, yes it really can happen like that...I was fine one day was a anxious nervous wreck but no twitching...then overnight bam everything went haywire....I started twitching everywhere, now on top of the twitches I have cramps, pain, my legs feel like jelly somedays....just came back from a 2.5 klm bike ride which is nothing really and I thought I was going to fall off my bike when I got home.... :mad: it makes me so mad I used to be so fit...Try not to google too much...I used to be a google addict, guaranteed you will scare yourself silly..I did...and yes anxiety can do amazing things to our minds....my legs are my hotspots especially my feet which I hate....try not to worry too much, your neuro said no nasty....keep remembering that...keep posting there are some great people on here who will give you heaps of support......best wishes to you.....shannon
 
Hi there, yes it really can happen like that...I was fine one day was a anxious nervous wreck but no twitching...then overnight bam everything went haywire....I started twitching everywhere, now on top of the twitches I have cramps, pain, my legs feel like jelly somedays....just came back from a 2.5 klm bike ride which is nothing really and I thought I was going to fall off my bike when I got home.... :mad: it makes me so mad I used to be so fit...Try not to google too much...I used to be a google addict, guaranteed you will scare yourself silly..I did...and yes anxiety can do amazing things to our minds....my legs are my hotspots especially my feet which I hate....try not to worry too much, your neuro said no nasty....keep remembering that...keep posting there are some great people on here who will give you heaps of support......best wishes to you.....shannon
 
Hi Rebunka, what you now experience is called "perceives weakness" and this is a thing which can really REALLY scare the *beep* out of you. I have this a lot in my hands and calves, together with tons of other symptoms. And it is normal for BFS. This may come and go, switch from arms to legs. Together with the pins and needles, maybe pain and all that stuff. Our nerves are just hyperexcited, the sensory as well as the motor nerves. They send signals to your muscles making them move that have never been authorized by your brain and -to make it worse- they send signals back to your brain telling it there were all kinds of sensations that are not really there. One must not be surprised that the brain is messed up by this behaviour. Same for the perceived weakness. The nerves tell your brain that your hand is weak, although it ist'n . I had this very bad in the beginning. I always had the feeling that my fingers were so weak that they were just hanging around on my palms. Anxiety will make it worse, yes. The part "behind the knees" also seems to be a very common place, this was a place where I had my first "spread" symptoms after it had started in my hands. Yu don't have to wait for ALS symptoms to come, they won't. ALS is a combination of upper motoneuron damage and lower motoneuron damage. It is possible to miss a beginning ALS with an EMG if only upper motoneuron is affected at this point. Then one would have to wait and see, but a patient with that would see his neuro for irreversable paralized body parts and the doc would find changed reflexes (not brisk, but "old" reflexes like babinsky sign etc.). Twitching in ALS is a sign for lower motoneuron damage. And lower motoneuron damage can be easily seen in an EMG. Even before the twitches occur, there would be massive changes in EMG. At the point where the fasciculations are visible in a patient (either by just looking at them or in the EMG), there has been a massive change in the nerves already. No chance of missing that. So if you have twitching as the only "hard fact" and the other stuff is perceived or sensory, it is not ALS. Actually one would not even need an EMG to say that, an neuro would see the obvious clinical weakness in an ALS patient at the point he shows fasciculations.
 
Thank you everyone so much for caring enough to take the time to reply! I was so upset last night, I didn't log on. I was having a tough night felt weakness and weirdness everywhere. I didn't even wan to move for fear of what i would feel when I stood up. I get so tired of telling my husband each day the new weird symptom I feel (and i am sure he is tired of it too!). I went for a neuro follow up today. He looked right at me and said "YOU DO NOT HAVE ALS", he showed me my brain scan which was great and a scan of my neck and said I have some mild nerve irritation that could be causing the "perceived" weak feelings in my arms and I have to go and get one more MRI for my lower back. I hate MRI's so I am doing this one in an "open" MRI. I came out of there and cried in the car all the way home. (luckily my husband was driving :D)) I told him about this site and he said, "Stop going onto the Internet it is really bad for you!" i told him not this site, people are like me, they are twitching and some are new and afraid, others are more used to it and are comforting those of us that are new and it is a good site for me to be on! I don't know if any of you have taken magnesium citrate (alone, not mixed with any other mineral) but I took 400 mg of it for about a week and i could barely feel my twitching at night. You won't believe this, but that actually freaked me out that I couldn't feel the twitching so I stopped taking it!! The neuro said take it if it helps so I took only 100 mg tonight. I will take a full pill tomorrow night. I do believe that stress definitely aggrivates this, though I don't know that it caused it? I wonder how many of us were super anxious people before we got this? I have always been very anxious and had major panic attacks basically since I was 15, which is a long time ago! Do any of you have a history of anxiety/panic prior to this? I mean I have told everyone that this is causing me anxiety not the other way around, but I wonder too. I think me working out way too much, not eating right, having a load of stress on me, i guess I can understand how that might mess up the body and make this happen, but I am having a difficult time understanding why it hasn't resolved itself by now. I wonder if I will twitch forever? I know it sounds like most of us will or at least go through bouts where it is less noticeable than other times. I felt wiped out after the neuro today and crying. I had some hard twitches today too, the kind that are like super rapid and much more noticeable in my arms. I swear you just want to punch your own arm, (tried it once, it doesn't work) but you just get so irritated by it!! Thank you again for writing back to me. While I hate knowing others are dealing with this, it of course makes me feel less alone and I appreciate the kindness. I hope one day that I can comfort someone new on here too. ;)xx
 

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