The Weakness Issue - Final Verdict?

[Tokahfang]

The reason you can go from benching 150 lbs to being unable to pass a clinical strength test a month later is because ALS causes neurological weakness. It isn't that your muscles don't have the potential to be strong, you become weak because your brain can't tell your muscles to use that potential, the nerve that carries the "use your potential!" signals is what isn't working. It's also why exercising can't improve neurological weakness.

This is much more obvious if you consider an easier to understand spinal problem: traumatic spinal cord injury. If you are in a ski accident this weekend and sever your spine, you very much will go from gym guy to paralyzed in much less than a month!

Now ALS is invisible to the eye, so I understand why it's harder to imagine it doing the same thing. But you have to remember that the ends of your lower motor neurons are constantly branching and trying to keep things going while they degenerate (this is what causes non-benign fasics), and so until that process of fighting for life is done, they carry those signals to the muscle. When they die off, whole parts of your muscle suddenly get no signal at all, and so clinical weakness shows up so fast it looks instantaneous from our human perspective.

At the core though, the ski accident and ALS cause weakness the same way - the brain isn't connected to the muscle or parts of the muscle and can't tell it to do things anymore.

 

[daytoday]

Just want to let you guys know, ALSburger or BFSburgers test on Lymes disease came out positive. Its unfair not only to people on this site to have an endless, it-will-go-nowhere arguments with someone who will never be satisfied with a "positive outcome" and will always try to prove something otherwise. It is also sad that because if this type of bloggers, some folks who have legitimate concerns will be lump in with the irrational folks.... Just a thought.

PS. ALSburger or BFSburger is also pissing off a lot of people in the BFS forum

 

[hjlindley]

I had spasms long before anything else. Then the weakness in my dominant hand. Surgery for that showed a crushed ulnar nerve from inappropriate weightlifting technique. Has started to get a little better than started to get worse than refuse my cervical spine, and by then, both the neurosurgeon and the neurologist were thinking ALS. Eight months after my cervical fusion I was having a checkup with my GP and she noticed the fasciculus should and a high CPK 3. Back to neurology and the final diagnosis with the dirty EMG. But I had spasms for probably a year to year and a half before I noticed the weakness in my hands. I almost didn't notice that until I had trouble holding weights in my weightlifting classes. In many respects , this is a deductive diagnosis.

 

[wright]

Evo34

Quite simply: you are one of the biggest HACKS / TROLLS on this forum. What's dangerous (and pathetic, in my opinion) about people like you, is that you think you know what you're saying. I assure you, you don't. What you don't realize . . . because, well, you're a HACK / TROLL . . . is that it does nothing but spread misinformation and panic. Congrat-u-f-ing-lations to you, too. From what I can clearly see, you're either stupid, ignorant or selfish. Which one is it? You got your lunch handed to you by a number of people on this forum already (Allen . . . Trfogey . . . for one, god rest his soul) because they realized that you are indeed a HACK / TROLL and didn't stand for your nonsensical rhetoric.

P.S. How many cases of ALS have I diagnosed? None . . . but . . . I have the education, the resources and the ALS specialists I have actually had conversations with about said disease to put my money on ME and not you (and any other HACK / TROLL) when it comes to those things MND. Go away . . . you BORE me!

 

[sadiemae]

Oh dear, I sent Burger to that other place. My apologies to you wonderful folks at aboutbfs

 

[daytoday]

No worries sadiemae. I have been following this forum for a while and I know youre only trying to help and I admire you a lot

Now back to the issue in this post:

Twitching before weakness.

On the Very RARE instances that ALS started with twitching before clinical weakness OR any other symptoms, that twitching is a LOCALIZED twitch, meaning that It only affects one part of your body and not body wide as BFS sufferers have. TRUE, BFS sufferers starts as a local twitch as well but progresses to body wide twitch in a matter of 2-4 weeks. Local twitching as the first symptom in ALS usually stays localized until you start having weakness or atrophy on that affected body part and then MUCH MUCH later on you will have twitching on other parts as well. Even though you have a localized twitch, it doesn't mean you automatically have ALS. There are a lot of diseases that can make you twitch locally aside from ALS.

Lastly, if your symptoms don't really sounds like any on what the good folks of the ALS forum and BFS forum wrote, then maybe it's just simply something else other than BFS or ALS.

 

[kiwisally]

Thanks so much for trying to sort him out Wright. Say whatever you feel you need to, it's more than justified. Johnny is....right......as well.

 

[momofsixkids60]

Thank you, daytoday. We need people like you to let us know what is happening on your site.

Sadiemae, your info was given to help him. Nobody would have known the havoc he wants to cause.

Thank you, Wright. You're our go to guy!

 

[frl8caco]

daytoday - I started twitching in BOTH calves in start of july, had a clear EMG in start og august. after that I got twitches in other parts of body very rarely (example above eye, lip, in hand, in arm, in back, in chest, in stomach). A week ago I also started to have much twitching in BOTH thighs in addition to BOTH calves, looks like the twitching has 'spread' from both calves to both thighs. I also have lots of muscle stiffness in calves,thighs, back, neck, hands, wrists, and when running I get tired easily BUT I can go to the gym and lift as much as I did six months ago in exercises like squats, leg press, shoulder press, benchpress. what do you make of this, ALS or BFS?

 

[sadiemae]

ALS, starts on one side. And body wide(both sided) is BFS. ALS also has weakness before twitching, so please do not come here and tell us about your gym experiences. My husband was unable to open a bottle of water by the time he noticed twitches. Actually, he could open a bottle of water with his left hand, in which he had no twitches. Twitches in ALS is just Mother Nature trying to heal the dead or dying muscle.

 

[Grateful]

Fri8caco

Your argument is a textbook case of the excluded middle; if you really want a name for whatever ails you then I suggest you use idiopathic twitching. It has the virtue of accuracy whilst sounding impressive..

 

[notme]

A lot of good information? Where the hell is it? Please point it out to me, because I'm not seeing it. I see an anxious, misinformed troll / hack (who knows nothing about ALS, other than how to spell it) riling-up things on this forum, disguising it as "the pursuit of knowledge." Give me a break.

If you and others on here want to question the proper diagnosis of MND . . . how twitches, weakness and other signs and symptoms are properly evaluated by educated, properly trained PHYSICIANS . . . then go right ahead. Do the rational people on this forum and those that actually have ALS a favor, and PM each other that NONSENSE. All this stupid thread has done is cause already needlessly anxious people to become more anxious. Congrat-u-f-ing-lations!

Wright,

I think monster meant on the forum in general, not this particular disaster thread.

Really, people, twitches all over without any neurological changes either on exam or EMG are nothing to worry about. Everyone gets them, and they can have various causes.

Some causes can be low b-12. Sometimes, it's BFS, sometimes, it's stress, sometimes, it's overdoing it, and sometimes, no cause is found.