Is this atrophy?

[Runner1337]

Hello everyone
First of all I want to thank you for what are you doing, for that great support and basically for everything you do for the people on this site. So I hope you can help me in some way and decrease my level of anxiety and stress. I am a young male working as a bus driver so basically I am just sitting behind the wheel most of the day so some kind of movement is kinda rare for me but 2 years ago I started doing running actively and everything was going fine. I felt much better. But something messed up in a really bad way.

It all started when I somehow injured my knee when running (not a big deal) and it was really painful so I went to a doc for an ultrasound if it is not something serious. He said he cannot see anything BUT he surprised me by what he said. He told me that in his opinion my muscles are weaker than they should be and I should see a neurologist. (This happened a year ago)

By that time my muscles started behave really strange. I am really weak last 9 months and unable to do any sports activity so my running is over. Literally after few minutes of running I feel like I ran a marathon and my muscles are done and I have to rest. I also developed muscle twitching that started in my thighs or calfs and became widespread shortly after that ( it is really annoying).

I had few neuro visits and all blood tests were good, head and spine MRI also good and 2 EMGs. My last EMG was done in August. Dont know what exactly they found but it was dirty. But the doc said I it is not that bad, prescribed me some meds and told me to come back in like 6 months for another one.

Recently I found out that my left legs is much weaker than the right. I was carrying some heavy stuff at garage and after few minutes i could barely lift my arms up and I could barely stand on my left leg. It was that weak. But what makes me crazy is that it is much smaller than the right. Like pretty much there is less muscle mass for sure. And dont think it was like this before. I have always been very skinny but I think this is unusual.

Dont know if it is atrophy or not so I am posting a picture of my legs. Hope you can identify if this is atrophy or not. It drives me mad and i am really anxious which is really bad because of my job. My next appointment at neuro is like month away and I am desperate about it because all of my symptoms refer to ALS.

Thank you for your time ;-)

Daniel

 

[KarenNWendyn]

It’s hard to diagnose atrophy from the picture as most people have some asymmetry. As for your “dirty” EMG, it would be helpful to know exactly what it showed, as not all EMG abnormalities indicate ALS. With ALS, we expect characteristic findings that suggest acute and chronic denervation and reinnervation. Waiting is hard, but it’s important to see that neuromuscular disease specialist to get properly diagnosed.

 

[Runner1337]

Thanks for the reply

I asked the doc after the EMG what he thinks about it and told me it is good for now but it is definitely not clean and suggested another EMG which should be in no time. That is all I can remember but i can look for the medical report somewhere and update the post with findings hope it helps. But my biggest struggle currently is the leg.