The first symptoms I had, ( or thought they were the first)...was slightly slurred speech, liquids spurting out the wrong way, my tongue then felt wierd and I needed to swallow much more. The speech then slowed down a lot and continuously swallowed whilst trying to talk.
Once I knew what was wrong with me, and on learning more about it, I did recall that long before all this happened i was getting cramps every morning when I woke up and stretched...just thought I was getting older, and for about a year my husband had been telling me to go to the doctors as I was ALWAYS yawning uncontrollably especially when on the phone.
My needle test as the neuro called it...I dont know any details about it...I know it was very noisy the whole way through..apart from when he did it under my chin. When I was told the result, he just said cast iron evidence of pseudo bulbar palsy, I had just had the spinal tap done, and was so upset and didnt know about emg and results, that I did not ask anything. Everything had happened over the course of 2 weeks from the first time I saw the gp...we twigged what was the possible diagnosis was from the first time I saw the neuro, from something he said...rang a bell as we know someone with limb onset als...and tests etc started to sound familiar...so we asked him straight out. The worst thing is he said yes. So in my and my husbands mind I went from being fine to terminally ill in 2 weeks.