Not sure if this is onset ALS

[Mikemike12]

Hi everybody, thanks for taking the time to read this and any input given.

Some context, I’m a 23 year old male, non smoker, non drinker.

For the past week or so I’ve been experiencing some kind of weakness of my arm. Its as if my arm gets tired more a quickly than the other arm and i can’t explain why. I did nothing to set it off in terms of injury or exercise. I just randomly noticed the weakness.

I can still use the arm regular and can use force with my arm like if I'm lifting something its just that it’ll feel tired sooner than what’s normal. It’ll also start to have pain in my elbow, inner wrist and on my main forearm muscle.

I’ll also feel some pain/soreness on my top/outer forearm muscle if i flex and i feel as if i’m having a hard time flexing my tricep compared to my left arm thats fine.

My doctor today told me to just start off with stretching exercises and in a couple weeks if i get no improvement we’ll go from there.

I’m also wondering if this could just be some kind of health anxiety thing since when this first happened, i was going through a lot of stress and anxiety from a cancer scare from something found on a CT scan for something unrelated. It got bad enough to where i often couldn’t sleep and every little pain or ache was cancer somehow.

But I don’t know, doesn’t seem like arm soreness could be from anxiety.

I guess my question is, does this sound like ALS symptoms at all? Does it sound like weakness from ALS because I’ve never experienced spontaneous soreness before and it does have me pretty nervous.

I appreciate any advice or knowledge, thank you for reading this and for your time.

 

[Nikki J]

It does not. ALS is about failure Not being able to do something. Soreness points away. Anxiety doesn’t cause soreness but jumping to a fatal disease that you have no symptoms of is a sign of anxiety.

The most likely scenario here is that you strained that arm - maybe from overuse maybe from some mild injury you don’t remember

Your best bet is to follow your doctor’s advice and please stop thinking about it and do not test it.

 

[Mikemike12]

Hi thanks for replying. Been reading around the forum and learning more about the condition and it seems that you’re right.

From my understanding, true weakness wouldn’t be being able to use your arms but you just get tired more easily but more so, straight up just not being able to use your arms or not being able to move certain ways period?

Also from my understanding, ALS doesn’t really come with muscle pain really, like no soreness or aching, just weakness. Like i saw someone say its similar to when your fingers get too cold and you can barely move them?

I guess i was also probably worried about the fact that i feel like i have a hard time flexing my tricep in my affected arm but i can do so normally in the other arm but i assume that if i actually had true clinical weakness from ALS on my tricep, i wouldn’t be able to do much with my arm since the tricep is such a major muscle?

Also safe to assume with ALS theres no specific forearm pain with flexing your arm.

You’re probably right about just following my doctors advice and try to avoid anxiety about my arm. It’s just been alarming since its hardly gotten better really and it started suddenly feeling like that without having exercised or injured myself.

Again thanks for your reply and your time, i really appreciate it.

 

[Mikemike12]

Hi, sorry to bother anybody. Was wondering if anybody had any clarification on this on here since i feel like i see a lot of conflicting accounts of ALS. If anybody could clear this up, I’d appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

The previous questions:

“From my understanding, true weakness wouldn’t be being able to use your arms but you just get tired more easily or get sore more easily but more so, straight up just not being able to use your arms or not being able to move certain ways/perform certain actions period?

Also from my understanding, ALS doesn’t really come with muscle pain really, like no soreness or aching, just clinical weakness? Like i saw someone say its similar to when your fingers get too cold and you can barely move them?

I guess i was also probably worried about the fact that i feel like i have a hard time flexing my tricep in my affected arm but i can do so normally in the other arm but i assume that if i actually had true clinical weakness from ALS on my tricep, i wouldn’t be able to do much with my arm since the tricep is such a major muscle?

Also safe to assume with ALS theres no specific forearm pain when flexing your arm.”

 

[lgelb]

Yes/yes/yes/yes. You are good to go.

 

[Mikemike12]

Thanks for the clarification, have a good one.