Worried About Slow Onset ALS

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CrazyJace

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...and found this post from someone:I have read in a neurology textbook, that proximal (trunk, face, upper extremities) muscle twitching is more ominous than distal twitching (hands, calves), so that's scary. Very concernd about slow onset ALS after having read quite a few stories on PALS pages where twitching obviously preceeded weakness by several years WTF!?!? I'm officially freaking out again because I'm currently experiencing all the facial stuff..!
 
Regarding to place of twitching - it is true ONLY with ALS - in the early phases its proximal while later distal. In BFS it doesnt matter.Regarding "years before weakness" - In the literature studying this subject the longest time interval between twitching and onset of weakness was 11 months..so I dont think its relevant to be scared of years.Facial fasciculations are quite normal even with normal healthy people, the most frequented place is eyelid. Reduce your stress, stop googling and it will get better.
 
Hi MarioMasher and others :)I've read on more than one occasion here about the Mayo Clinic Study. I went to mayoclinic.org then mayoclinic.com and read this:**S often begins with muscle twitching and weakness in an arm or leg, or with slurring of speech.I'm not sure where to find an actual study but info about the actual disease is of course there. It also does state an early symptom is twitcing in the hands, arms or tongue. Foot/leg weakness is listed before this one but so far I found nothing that says weakness preceeds twitching. Back to square one after a decent night's sleep!
 
CrazyJace, Mario was reffering to study where people with benign fasciculations were followed up to 32 years - none of them developed ALS.Read the sentence again: twitching AND weakness. Its because when people notice twitching, the extremity is usually weaker or clumsy. You are trying to find negative things everywhere. The text from Mayo mentioned twitching is early symptom, well, its not earliest. Many patients doesnt notice their hand is weaker (altough it is) and start to care just when they notice twitching..Go and read about pathology of ALS - you will learn that denervation (also dying of motor neurons) causes that muscle has less control. With less control from neurons it produces less strenght = weakness. When motor neurons are dying they produce electrical activity - fibrillations (specifically) and fasciculations (could be from other things).Thats why clean EMG with fasciculations without fibrillations means no ALS = because the nerves are not dying.Fasciculations could be induced by caffein overdose - and on EMG they will look the same as from diseases.Hope this helps.
 
blizna, i am not 30 or less, i am almost 40!!!you know i just don't like posts that speak about the exceptions because they make me freaking out....i don't know the two people you mention...is one of them the 74 years old man we all know from diverse posts here?generally i would say that people who are twitching and had clean emgs this points towards the diagnosis of bfs.....the mayo-study in its study did not have one single person where bfs infact came out as als.... the people from the studies you mention that developped als after months of twitching only had certainly other signs and a dirty emg, otherwise they wouldn't have had a reason to follow up them for such a long time...!?
 
ok i know now, i wish i didn't....did he and the others mentionned have a clean emg at the beginning of his twitching???i doubt my emgs again: are the fibrillations (superfast subtle fascics) i feel in the legs now bad?am i already old for bfs?are the fasciculations seen in the first em (not psw or signs of denervation/reinervation) maybe als-related and the doctor did misinterpret them....getting scared again... :mad:
 
Laurent, with your clean EMG and the timespan its just BFS for sure..the same as the rest of us here. About quadbliss - somebody posted about him sometime ago on this site so it remembered him to me.Boo boo, I cant remember if you have EMG done. If yes, I really dont understand why you search for old BFS surveys and freak out of them.I think the best is to realize that nobody on this forum has ever developed ALS, nobody. There is no reason to think you will be the first - believe me I went through this hell too and the only thing that really helped me was focusing on another things and dont care about this stuff. Later I started to studying everything about ALS in order to do not be freaked. After inital shocks, now I feel absolutely OK and there is no "scary" information that can scare me :D) Well, maybe it was not the best method how to cope, but in my case it worked :)EDIT: Laurent, googling again? :/ No, he has no EMG done. But his case was atypical, you cant take him as normal case of ALS. And again - localized twitching!Laurent YOU CANT FEEL FIBRILLATIONS! Those are detected ONLY by an EMG! What you feel is some kind of sensory issues!
 
Guys you are losing control, one more time:1) EMG with only fasciculations is considered absolutely normal. When twitching is due to LMN, there will be more denervation potentials like PSW, fibs.2) Fibrillations cannot be felt or seen, its twitch of single muscle fiber!3) Any strange feelings like buzzing, tingling etc points AWAY from ALS - it doesnt affect sensory nerves.
 
Yes defnitely losong control. Thanks for your further replies. I get a vibrating/buzzing sensation in my lips sometimes lately..Ok, I know, I know. :D)
 

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