Sandylee
New member
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2014
- Messages
- 9
- Reason
- Learn about ALS
- Country
- HK
- State
- HK
- City
- Hong Kong
Hi there everyone,
its been almost 2 years since i last logged on here, i always hoped i would never have to come back but unfortunately i have found myself in a position where i need a bit of advice from all of you.
As mentioned in my post 2 years ago, i had started experiencing some neurological issues, especially related to twitching, muscle stiffness, a little bit of pain, initially not too many issues with weakness but it was more like perceived weakness, doctors did every test they could including blood work, ANA, MRI of the brain etc etc, in the last 2 years i have had 4 EMG's, last one was done in May of 2016 and they didn't find any issues other than a small issues with my Ulnar nerve which i think i damaged by sitting on my work desk too much and pushing down on my elbows and some some small issues picked up from my neck.
However in the past 2 years i can feel that my strength level has gone done significantly, my left hand gets tired very easily to the point that if i over exert it, it literally has trouble functioning and i have to rest it for a while to gain back strength , my fingers feel weak sometimes as well and a bit stiff on both hands, the grip has issues but weird thing is these symptoms come and go, worse on some days but not as bad on others, never fully recover tho, my swallowing and chewing gets affected sometimes as i feel tired and need to eat soft food or feel like food doesn't flow down, but on certain days thats not to bad either but my jaw feels stiff and hurts, same goes for my legs as i get tired easily, my speech has issues sometimes as well and i tend to stutter or say words wrong, however that also varies and does not stay the same.
At present i have twitching again all over my body and have developed a new twitch under my right eye which gets bad after i squint, smile hard or wash my face etc, my body feels floppy at times as well and exerting myself sometimes causes more twitching, but hands also feel twitchy inside especially around my thumb, i haven't noticed any atrophy but my left hand is a bit smaller as i am right handed however its difficult to tell if i have lost muscle compared to two years ago, same goes for other parts of my body such as my Biceps etc .
There's other symptoms as well but i want to save your time and get down to the main point which is could i still have ALS and it hasn't shown up yet ?
From all the post here its difficult to tell as they say the diagnosis usually takes 2-3 years but in my case i started checking these issues right away when i felt something was off, could it have been tooo early to be picked up ? i have avoided going to my Neuro for the past few months and am trying to stay strong, as i know there's things like Fibro etc that can also explain such symptoms and twitching can be benign but the weakness is the issue that i can not explain.
I would appreciate if anyone of you who has been through the same thing could tell me that is it still possible i haven't been diagnosed correctly and its starting to get worse now or i need to let the ALS side of things go and focus on other health issues ?
Thank you and looking forward to any responses
Lots of Love to you all
its been almost 2 years since i last logged on here, i always hoped i would never have to come back but unfortunately i have found myself in a position where i need a bit of advice from all of you.
As mentioned in my post 2 years ago, i had started experiencing some neurological issues, especially related to twitching, muscle stiffness, a little bit of pain, initially not too many issues with weakness but it was more like perceived weakness, doctors did every test they could including blood work, ANA, MRI of the brain etc etc, in the last 2 years i have had 4 EMG's, last one was done in May of 2016 and they didn't find any issues other than a small issues with my Ulnar nerve which i think i damaged by sitting on my work desk too much and pushing down on my elbows and some some small issues picked up from my neck.
However in the past 2 years i can feel that my strength level has gone done significantly, my left hand gets tired very easily to the point that if i over exert it, it literally has trouble functioning and i have to rest it for a while to gain back strength , my fingers feel weak sometimes as well and a bit stiff on both hands, the grip has issues but weird thing is these symptoms come and go, worse on some days but not as bad on others, never fully recover tho, my swallowing and chewing gets affected sometimes as i feel tired and need to eat soft food or feel like food doesn't flow down, but on certain days thats not to bad either but my jaw feels stiff and hurts, same goes for my legs as i get tired easily, my speech has issues sometimes as well and i tend to stutter or say words wrong, however that also varies and does not stay the same.
At present i have twitching again all over my body and have developed a new twitch under my right eye which gets bad after i squint, smile hard or wash my face etc, my body feels floppy at times as well and exerting myself sometimes causes more twitching, but hands also feel twitchy inside especially around my thumb, i haven't noticed any atrophy but my left hand is a bit smaller as i am right handed however its difficult to tell if i have lost muscle compared to two years ago, same goes for other parts of my body such as my Biceps etc .
There's other symptoms as well but i want to save your time and get down to the main point which is could i still have ALS and it hasn't shown up yet ?
From all the post here its difficult to tell as they say the diagnosis usually takes 2-3 years but in my case i started checking these issues right away when i felt something was off, could it have been tooo early to be picked up ? i have avoided going to my Neuro for the past few months and am trying to stay strong, as i know there's things like Fibro etc that can also explain such symptoms and twitching can be benign but the weakness is the issue that i can not explain.
I would appreciate if anyone of you who has been through the same thing could tell me that is it still possible i haven't been diagnosed correctly and its starting to get worse now or i need to let the ALS side of things go and focus on other health issues ?
Thank you and looking forward to any responses
Lots of Love to you all