ALS spreading speed

[shanyeeka]

Hi!

How fast is ALS spreading on the average? I have not diagnosed.
I have been fasciculations and weakness in both of my legs and strange tingling feeling in my soles for 3 months. The EMG result: some fibrillation potentials and some fasciculation potentials in both of legs. My neuro opinion: Mild nerve damage in legs. Motoneuron disease not experienced. Not can be closed BFS.
I'm waiting for MRI.

 

[BethU]

Shanyeeka ... I don't think there is an "average" progression with ALS. Each case is unique. What I am experiencing is not the spread of symptoms throughout my body so much as a continued increase in weakness in the areas where it has appeared.

I started with bulbar symptoms, and those have continued to worsen and worsen and now my speech is gone completely (3 years after first symptoms, 1 year after diagnosed), while moderately mild symptoms have appeared elsewhere (hands, forearms, one leg). I assume these will get worse and worse, just as my bulbar symptoms did, then perhaps mild symptoms will appear elsewhere, etc.

So with me, it's not a question of weakness spreading uniformly throughout my body, but of very mild symptoms appearing in one area and getting worse and worse, then very mild symptoms appearing elsewhere and progressing in severity.

I have no idea what the logic is in where the symptoms appear next. Does ALS metastacize like cancer? I don't think researchers even know for sure if ALS begins in the brain or the muscles, so whatever links control how it progresses are really a guess. I know this is more than you asked , but your question made me realize again how very little is known about ALS, despite decades of research.

BTW, the tingling in your feet does not sound like ALS.

Good luck.