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timeflows

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I'm a 17 years old boy living in Indonesia where motor neuron diseases are quite rare. But I have some symptoms that concern me of having ALS, and they're quite bothering me in enjoying my peaceful life.

It started on June, this year. When I was using my computer, my right pinky finger suddenly moved on itself. I wasn't paying a huge attention back then, but when it kept on moving when I was using my mouse, for more than a week and even more widespread, I knew something bad might be going on.

Then, I started googling my symptom. At first, I was thinking that it's a tremor (I didn't know what a muscle twitch was). I had read some about essential tremor and Parkinson's disease and was first concerned about having them. But as the search went deeper, I knew that my symptom is not tremor, and thus there came the term fasciculation and ALS.

But right when I knew I might have had ALS, suddenly I got tremors all over my body too (which shouldn't be an ALS symptom right?). But the tremors lasted only for a month, and the fasciculations kept playing their role on making me scared. But at that time, the fasciculations were kinda different. The fasciculations in my fingers disappeared, and they moved into my left thigh. Every 20 seconds the twitches happened there, sometimes in my left calf, rarely in my face, stomach, biceps, right thigh, and very rarely back to my fingers.

On September, last month, I started feeling like dragging my left leg. Then I remembered that muscle atrophy, or a diminishing size in a muscle, is a symptom of ALS. I suddenly had the urge to measure the size of my thighs and calves, only to be freaked out that my right leg was bigger, around 1 inch for the thigh, and 0.5 inch for the calf. Then, I started checking asymmetrical differences on my body to find out that my right arm had a muscle dent (or something, I don't know the right term) that my left arm hadn't.

Yesterday, my muscles were very stiff, but today they behave quite normal (stiffness-wise). By the time I am writing this thread, I've had a great number of fasciculations happening mainly in my left thigh. I'm a right handed person who doesn't have the courage to consult a neurologist. I've never tripped when walking, never spilled a glass of water, but the struggle in walking seems so real that I don't think of having hypochondriasis. If it really is hypochondriasis, why did it happen in the first place when I know and worry nothing about the disease?

Could it be another disease (that is curable)? Because if so, my courage to visit a neurologist can be shown up. Oh, and another question: Does ALS affect only the motor neurons or could it also attack the cognitive brain function?



tl;dr: 17 y.o., right handed, widespread fasciculations but happen mainly in my left thigh since June, left thigh and calf is around an inch smaller than the right. Could it be any other than ALS?

EDIT: I somehow am able to "trigger" the fasciculations in my right pinky. If I move my pinky finger's metacarpal, the fasciculations will happen there. Also, there were two full days on September, when my right pinky kept moving on itself without stop. Even when I was trying to sleep.
 
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No, Timeflows, there is no ALS at all in your post. In some ways, you are describing the opposite of ALS. When your hand or your foot go limp and do nothing at all, then come back to us.
 
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