Status
Not open for further replies.

Dingle

New member
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
4
Reason
Other
Country
US
State
Ohio
City
Toledo
Hey all,
I just want to start off by saying I am not here to troll or waste anyone's time. I have a great deal of respect for the people in this forum and I hope everyone with ALS or know someone with ALS one day can finally beat this disease. I am currently a medical student, and realize that hypochondria is also very real and something I could suffer from. I'm not here pleading for someone to diagnose me, I just want to gain more knowledge from people that have had up close experience with it and overcome my own fear (possibly displaced) that I have this.

I had twitching in my left middle finger start about two months ago, and I feel it mostly at the base of it right in front of my knuckle. Since then, I've had sporadic twitching across my body, recently more frequently in my right big toe (moreso when I'm resting). I've also had pain sensations around both my wrists since then, more times laterally, but they reside within a couple minutes (it feels stiff as well, but movement wise when I test it there's no loss of anything from what I can tell). These pain sensations also occur in my fingers that twitch occasionally. From time to time I also have this feeling like either of my hands/fingers are cramping for a couple seconds when I'm using my hands for some type of activity. I don't really know if this is just something in my head, as in these types of pains and aches happened before these two months and I just didn't pay as much attention to it as I do now. If anyone in this forum can help me out, tell me if they'd seen these symptoms in relation to ALS, or if I really need to just stop worrying, that would be greatly appreciated. I don't know what the statistics are for males in 20s to get this disease, I haven't been able to find anything. Thank you all in advance for all your help, even if I'm not a PALS you guys are still tremendously helping me and I'm sure a lot of other lurkers in this forum can say the same.
 
Well there are some age stats in the sticky you were supposed to have read. Pains and sporadic twitching do not sound like ALS.
 
I just saw the sticky, my apologies. Thank you for your help
 
Dingle, you're not a PALS.

(Frankly, that was the weakest argument for ALS I've ever read.)

People don't get ALS at 23. But medical students are well known for becoming hyper-aware of every little thing in their body.

For your education, since you asked:
- Lots of people come here to say they twitch, usually all over. But healthy people twitch, especially as we get older, and lots of conditions cause twitching, so it's really not diagnostic of anything. Finally, when ALS does cause twitches, the twitches are localized to the next muscle that's about to become paralyzed.
- Lots of people say they are getting weak muscles, and worry if they will become paralyzed. But usually they mean their muscle "feels" weak, or they can do fewer push-ups than before. That's not clinical weakness. When ALS causes a muscle to become weak, there is no feeling of weakness or fatigue or burning or exhaustion or weird sensation; it just doesn't contract because the motor neuron in the brain is destroyed.

Hope that helps.
Enjoy your schooling.
 
So having pain/sensation at the base of my middle finger (normal function in terms of movement) points away from ALS? Unless my finger was already severely affected up and I couldn't move it
 
Thank you, Atsugi. You posted while I was typing my reply so you answered my question before I got a chance to ask it. I'm sorry to bother you all or waste your time, I sincerely thank you for your input
 
Is there no way of putting up a sticky saying if you do not have a muscle that does not work, do not post anything on this website?
Vincent
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top