Possible ALS or just health anxiety?

[Sara94]

Hello everyone,

I'm Sara and I'm 23 years old. I've been having a huge amount of anxiety lately about possibly having ALS. What I'm trying to figure out if this is simply anxiety, or something much more troubling...

The first thing I noticed was a slight shaking in either of my thumbs, usually while doing fine motor activities. Then, I started to notice an increase in muscle spasms in various places on my body. Not with a huge amount of worry (because these things were'nt that bad), I went to googl e to look for answers. The first thing I came across was Parkinson's, freaked over that for a bit, then moved on to Huntington's. After I realized that both were extremely unlikely because neither really matched my symptoms, I came across ALS, which I confess I didn't really know about. After reading about it, and watching videos about people who have this, my worries began that this may be what I have. I started to become aware of things going on with my body that I had slightly noticed before but hadn't given much thought to. For example, my balance and gait have been off for several months now. I'm kind of wobbly, and I tend to get unsteady. I also feel pretty weak in my arms, hands and legs. I noticed that pumping out some soap, or pushing buttons is slightly difficult, like my fingers are weak. Holding a glass for a minute is tiring. I also noticed getting up from the toilet is kind of hard, and takes more effort than it should. The scariest thing is this slight limp on my left side. My left foot tends to drag, and I have to adjust to keep it from skimming the ground. Also, my right ring finger and pinky I noticed are somewhat stiff, and they just feel strangely weak.

Some things about me I should note...

I do have anxiety/obsessive compulsive tendencies.
I am pretty out of shape and unhealthy. I eat way more fast food and junk food than what's good for me. I hardly ever exercise and don't get much exertion at work either.
I have gained over 30 pounds over the last year and a half. I think that's why some of those symptoms like the changes in walking, and balance, and weak feeling never alarmed me because I attributed them to the changes in my weight and how our of shape I had become. Was I right in thinking like this? Or do these symptoms really suggest something more alarming?
I can't get it out of my head that I might have ALS, so I guess what I'm asking is, does this sound like ALS, or is this just health anxiety? I understand that only s doctor can definitively answer that question, but I figure that many people on here are experienced in ALS, and people freaking out because they fear they might have it. Could I maybe just be having these symptoms because I read about ALS, and started to worry about it?

 

[Atsugi]

You didn't write anything that would make me worry about ALS, or anything else for that matter.

You described a pretty solid case for anxiety. See the doc.

ALS at 23? No. I don't think there is anyone on this site your age.

With ALS , a muscle does not feel weak. It just doesn't work. Feels normal. Not weak or funny or strange. If you had ALS, you'd wonder why your foot muscle doesn't work. It would feel perfectly fine. There are other things you'd need to have, to have ALS. But I'm not going to describe them for various reasons.

You're OK. See your primary care physician about that anxiety.

 

[Bestfriends14]

The title of your post is; Possible ALS or Health Anxiety?

The answer is...health anxiety! Which we do not help with here.

If you can continue to treat your body poorly, it will continue to treat you poorly back. You are what you eat, as the saying goes.

Start to treat your body with care and you will notice a big improvement in the way you feel.