drumb1001
New member
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2015
- Messages
- 2
- Reason
- Learn about ALS
- Country
- US
- State
- NC
- City
- Charlotte
Hello everyone.
First and foremost, I would like to say that I'm not here to waste anyone's time, so any input is greatly appreciated.
A little bit about myself. I'm a 24 year old male, relatively healthy. Relatively because as of late my lifestyle has gotten a little bit too sedentary, and I've also been struck by anxiety, or that's what I believe it is at least.
I have no family history of ALS. I was feeling relatively fine and didn't pay much attention to my health until this year. Due to inactivity and carelessness, I have developed several symptoms that, I believe, caused the anxiety in the first place. And everything got amplified when my grandmother died of a sudden heart attack at 87 years old. She was gone in less than 2 hours.
My symptoms started with a weird pain that radiated down my left leg. Felt like sciatica. I had an MRI of my lower back done, everything came back clear. Blood work, clear. Urine test, clear. Got sent to an urologist who managed to figure out what was wrong and I'm better now. Nothing serious at all.
What worried me the most though were these random muscle fasciculations. I did a little bit of reading and found out that these can also be caused by anxiety, which is pretty common, or even a lack of vitamins (magnesium, for example). The fasciculations I was experiencing were random and pretty frequent at first. Now I'm taking a daily supplement of vitamins (A-Z, 1 per day), and the fasciculations have noticeably reduced. Apparently, now they happen most frequently after I do a weak contraction of a muscle (but this is not always the case, sometimes they also happen randomly, although pretty rare). Always after, never during. And not always. But these happen almost everywhere, from back, to biceps, to forearm, even my thumb! Never above neck though.
Another thing that bothers me is this weird feeling in my left buttock. I feel like the muscles in that area are always sore. To be exact, I feel like they're asleep and when I do a heavy contraction there I'm getting a pretty bad cramp. Only on the left side. Never on the right side. Also on the left buttock I noticed a dent (almost right in the middle), which got me scared thinking its atrophy. It goes away when I bend a little bit forward, which then got me thinking its maybe just fat related.
Last thing that bothers me. Do you know that feeling when you have to go to the toilet but have to hold? I'm talking about those muscles that everyone is contracting when holding. I really don't know their name so I'm sorry for that. I noticed that a lot of times, if not always, I"m contracting those muscles involuntarily, even when walking! Only when I think about it I realize, "oh, I did it again". This also got me scared as I thought that maybe some muscles stopped functioning and that's just my body compensating from elsewhere.
Anyways, this post has gotten a bit too long so I apologize. It'd be great if I could get a little bit of input here so I can calm myself down a bit. Thanks everyone
First and foremost, I would like to say that I'm not here to waste anyone's time, so any input is greatly appreciated.
A little bit about myself. I'm a 24 year old male, relatively healthy. Relatively because as of late my lifestyle has gotten a little bit too sedentary, and I've also been struck by anxiety, or that's what I believe it is at least.
I have no family history of ALS. I was feeling relatively fine and didn't pay much attention to my health until this year. Due to inactivity and carelessness, I have developed several symptoms that, I believe, caused the anxiety in the first place. And everything got amplified when my grandmother died of a sudden heart attack at 87 years old. She was gone in less than 2 hours.
My symptoms started with a weird pain that radiated down my left leg. Felt like sciatica. I had an MRI of my lower back done, everything came back clear. Blood work, clear. Urine test, clear. Got sent to an urologist who managed to figure out what was wrong and I'm better now. Nothing serious at all.
What worried me the most though were these random muscle fasciculations. I did a little bit of reading and found out that these can also be caused by anxiety, which is pretty common, or even a lack of vitamins (magnesium, for example). The fasciculations I was experiencing were random and pretty frequent at first. Now I'm taking a daily supplement of vitamins (A-Z, 1 per day), and the fasciculations have noticeably reduced. Apparently, now they happen most frequently after I do a weak contraction of a muscle (but this is not always the case, sometimes they also happen randomly, although pretty rare). Always after, never during. And not always. But these happen almost everywhere, from back, to biceps, to forearm, even my thumb! Never above neck though.
Another thing that bothers me is this weird feeling in my left buttock. I feel like the muscles in that area are always sore. To be exact, I feel like they're asleep and when I do a heavy contraction there I'm getting a pretty bad cramp. Only on the left side. Never on the right side. Also on the left buttock I noticed a dent (almost right in the middle), which got me scared thinking its atrophy. It goes away when I bend a little bit forward, which then got me thinking its maybe just fat related.
Last thing that bothers me. Do you know that feeling when you have to go to the toilet but have to hold? I'm talking about those muscles that everyone is contracting when holding. I really don't know their name so I'm sorry for that. I noticed that a lot of times, if not always, I"m contracting those muscles involuntarily, even when walking! Only when I think about it I realize, "oh, I did it again". This also got me scared as I thought that maybe some muscles stopped functioning and that's just my body compensating from elsewhere.
Anyways, this post has gotten a bit too long so I apologize. It'd be great if I could get a little bit of input here so I can calm myself down a bit. Thanks everyone
