sephiroth_m75
New member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2007
- Messages
- 5
- Reason
- PALS
- Country
- CA
- State
- NL
- City
- St. John's
Hello everyone.
I'm an 18 year old male, a smoker, a drinker, 220 lbs.
Like many people here, I'm nervous about the possibility that I may have ALS. There are a few symptoms I definitely have, some of which may be attributable to other causes. There are other symptoms I don't have, at least not yet. And then, there are a few symptoms I'm not really sure about.
One of those is muscle atrophy.
What exactly is muscle atrophy? does it look a certain way? Feel a certain way? Is it just asymmetry between two muscles? I say this because my arm and leg muscles on my left side don't flex quite as tightly as those on my right side. I've measured them, and they're the same size and everything, it's just that my left side doesn't tighten as much as my right side when I flex it. This applies to my biceps and calf muscles. Is this what you'd call atrophy, or am I just paranoid?
Also, I've definitely been experiencing fasciculations lately. This is one of the symptoms I'm really certain about, and I know it's a biggie with ALS. I've only been experiencing this recently (a couple weeks), but over these few weeks it's really increased a lot. It should be noted that these past few months I've been chronically sleep deprived and (shamefully) abusing my ADD medication and coffee, and both of those things are known to cause fasciculations. So I guess the fasciculations alone aren't scary given my lifestyle, but when I combine them with (what could be) muscle atrophy, I dunno...
I apologize if this sounds a little overly paranoid, but I just had a really intense bout of fasciculations when I was lying in bed, and it prompted me to get up and try to find out more about it... which led me here.
I'm an 18 year old male, a smoker, a drinker, 220 lbs.
Like many people here, I'm nervous about the possibility that I may have ALS. There are a few symptoms I definitely have, some of which may be attributable to other causes. There are other symptoms I don't have, at least not yet. And then, there are a few symptoms I'm not really sure about.
One of those is muscle atrophy.
What exactly is muscle atrophy? does it look a certain way? Feel a certain way? Is it just asymmetry between two muscles? I say this because my arm and leg muscles on my left side don't flex quite as tightly as those on my right side. I've measured them, and they're the same size and everything, it's just that my left side doesn't tighten as much as my right side when I flex it. This applies to my biceps and calf muscles. Is this what you'd call atrophy, or am I just paranoid?
Also, I've definitely been experiencing fasciculations lately. This is one of the symptoms I'm really certain about, and I know it's a biggie with ALS. I've only been experiencing this recently (a couple weeks), but over these few weeks it's really increased a lot. It should be noted that these past few months I've been chronically sleep deprived and (shamefully) abusing my ADD medication and coffee, and both of those things are known to cause fasciculations. So I guess the fasciculations alone aren't scary given my lifestyle, but when I combine them with (what could be) muscle atrophy, I dunno...
I apologize if this sounds a little overly paranoid, but I just had a really intense bout of fasciculations when I was lying in bed, and it prompted me to get up and try to find out more about it... which led me here.