Re: Back, and worried again!
Okay, so i was on here a wee while ago (2 months) with various problems...symptoms. I had a clean EMG
Glad to hear that.
- However........since then i have had MORE twitching, from tongue to fingers, to stomach, to legs, back, shoulders - everywhere...
Of course, your doctors have surely told you that twitching without weakness and with a clean EMG is benign and indicates that you do not have ALS. You should be happy about that.
What is bothering me more than anything are the countless posts online saying they had numerous EMG's ALL coming back clean and then after 3 or so years of symptoms they have a positive EMG result for ALS.
If you are foolish and stupid enough to keep reading stories that you can't confirm about people you've never met after your being given a clean bill of health by your own doctors, then you deserve to be frightened out of your mind -- provided of course that you had a mind to start with.
I forgot to say that my tongue/jaw is feeling very fatigued especially when chewing and ive bitten my tongue more times lately than I have in my whole life. I have a follow up appointment coming up with the neurologist.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that examining room.....
I found a couple on here of the misdiagnosed.
Those people have user names, just like you and I do. If you are going to make these claims about other members, please name them so that we can verify what you're saying about them. If you can't be troubled to make note of their names, then shut up about them.
I am on anti anxiety meds.
Good. You need them. Probably more of them.
I went into the doctors and got a copy of my first letter which states "Sensory function in tact, deep tendon reflexes were brisk with no pathological reflexes." Of course i am freaking out about the brisk reflexes.
And, as usual, you're freaking out for no good reason. It is normal for some people to have brisk reflexes. Obviously, you are one of those people. If there were anything for you to be worried about, the doctor would have noted it as a pathologically brisk reflex.
Then the letter after the EMG says this... Reported normal nerve conduction studies with no evidence for widespread anterior horn cell disease. Left C7 radiculopathy was reported.
ALS is an anterior horn cell disease. Your EMG reports that there is no evidence of widespread anterior horn cell disease in your body -- thus, you don't have ALS and the symptoms that caused you to seek medical attention are not themselves symptoms of ALS, as we tried to tell you the first time you were here. And it suggests a C7 radiculopathy could be causing the problems in your left hand and arm.
How about bulbar onset? I wasn't checked for that with the EMG and my speech is much worse and any word beginning with 'R'
Or 'T' won't come out right.
Most people don't like having needles inserted and wiggled around in their faces, so neurologists only do bulbar EMGs to verify clinical signs of ALS, such as slurred speech, inability to move your tongue around, difficulty keeping lips sealed, etc. Obviously, you didn't show any of those signs while the first neuro was examining you and there was no need to check bulbar nerves during the EMG.
In just saying I have many bulbar characteristics and I never had any tests for that. My tongue is so achy and I really struggle to form words to the point of slurring and the tired jaw, nasal speech and sporadic choking when I'm eating and when I'm not. There are too many things pointing to what I dont want it to be.
Apparently, you don't show these bulbar symptoms to an experienced neuro. And you might find that the soreness and tiredness might go away if you stopped trying to get them to do things that they're not meant to do -- like crazy strength tests that people have devised to "prove" that they have bulbar ALS symptoms.
Not forgetting the tongue twitches
Lots of people have tongue twitches and don't have ALS. Congratulations -- you're one of them.