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Hello Chris. What you describe is Gearwheel syndrome. This is very common with a time of anxiety. Tremors and faciculations are also something that everyone can have. Some people actually have them for years and then they go away. I dont Think that your doc thought it was Parkinson. All neuro docs take this kind of symptoms serious. You can have something... But not ALS. Dont read more on google, like i have done. It will make a mess in your life. That you feel shaky, is because of cortisole/adrenal leves are high/low with your anxiety.. :)

Take care man... take a coke, talk with a doc.. but forget ALS... Please come back and tell us how it all goes... :)
 
Christopher, your bio says ("Forum Interest: I am interested in learning about ALS/MND.) Key words "interested" and "learning." You just recently joined. You haven't been here long enough to give advice to anyone. You do not have ALS. You need to find another Forum to occupy your free time which you seem to have too much of. You're coming across like a person with serious mental issues... not any MND. Don't come back telling me I am right... I already know that.
 
Geeze ClearwaterAl - I was all set to ask what Gearwheel Syndrome was.....
 
It's the gear wheel that makes the most noise between some people's left and right ear. The irritable sound comes out the mouth and can actually be transmitted through the finger tips on to a key board.
 
Haha, Al, that was very funny.

I wonder if Christopher means Cogwheel Rigidity/Cogwheel Syndrome. However, we are no doctors here, so don't write; "You have this and that". Advice is good, acting like you can diagnose someone is very bad, especially if they are anxiety ridden.

I have a suggestion though; Maybe one of the stickys here should be about stress/anxiety? It seems that most posts in the DIHALS section could be attributed to that.
 
progressive weakness questions

Thank you all for replying to my last posts. It really helped me out a lot and answered a lot of questions for me. I still have questions about clinical weakness and I was wondering if some one could clear it up for me. I stated in my last post that my fingers tremble when I hold them in a certain position and my hands shake when I'm holding them in a certain position or when I'm holding something because my wrists feel weak also. I also have aches in my inner forearm when holding stuff. Does clinical weakness start off as a subtle weakness before it progresses to a clinical weakness?Because I'm able to do things and complete every day tasks right now but if my hands and wrists continue to get weaker I'm afraid I won't be in the future. And Twitching has also gotten worse it's happens all over my body but mostly in my left bicep and left shoulder. I was hoping someone with limb onset als can tell me if this sounds similar to how their symptoms started or if this is something that I should be worried about?
 
Okay, Chris, I’ll take your questions as: In a person without ALS, can perceived weakness just keep coming down the road until one day it turns into clinical weakness?

(Remember, I’m not a doctor.) I don’t believe that’s the way it works.
Perceived weakness is very normal. We have all had bad days at the gym when we just can’t perform up to par, or when walking the dog we just feel bushed, or when carrying the groceries just seems too much, or when lifting a normal weight our muscle trembles or quivers. You focus on the weakness and it seems to get worse. That is perfectly normal. But after a while, you search the internet, and rush off with fears of ALS. You see a neuro. You tell him about your weakness and his write-up says you have no weakness. He does an EMG and it is clean. He says you're fine. How can that be? Is your neuro an idiot? So you keep watching, measuring, testing, obsessing. And if you don’t have ALS, you just keep waiting, testing, obsessing and the anxiety makes it worse and worse.

But if you do have ALS, what happens? One day you step off the curb and end up on your face because your calf muscles don’t work. Or you trip because you suddenly have foot drop, and you can’t dorsaflex your ankle. Or you go the gym after a vacation of several weeks and find that you can’t do calf raises, at all. Suddenly, unexpectedly, something does not work.

We all feel perceived weakness from time to time, and we perceive it in our major muscles—quads, hamstrings, calves, biceps, triceps, a few others. But while you are counting how many bicep curls you can do with your left arm, you will never get to zero. Not before you trip and fall, or you can’t button your shirt, or stand on your toes—if you have ALS.

So, I believe the process is:
(1) If you have undiagnosed ALS and perceived weakness, there are about 300 skeletal muscles in the body and you will never perceive weakness in the muscle that is going to fail first. When it fails, you will have clinical weakness, have an EMG and get diagnosed. But while focusing on perceived weakness, you will develop massive anxiety, a whole bunch of extraneous symptoms and drive yourself and your neuro team crazy.
(2) If you don’t have ALS, just perceived weakness, you will simply develop massive anxiety, a whole bunch of extraneous symptoms and you will definitely drive yourself and your neuro team crazy. (And maybe a bunch of people on this site.)

Moral of the story—don’t worry about perceived weakness.
I feel weak. This seems harder than normal. So what! That is common to every one of us! And it's not a symptom of ALS.
I can’t do it. Not at all, no matter how hard I try! My muscle just doesn't work. Go see a neuro.

I guess your perceived weakness could be due to a muscle strain, a trigger point or something else. So go ahead and worry about it, but it’s not ALS.
 
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