Hi all,
I’ve been lurking here on and off for a little over a year and have even caved and posted a few threads. I just had my third clean EMG in 12 months. There was a point shortly after the onset of my symptoms where I was convinced I had ALS. I would come home from work and basically take depression naps. At one point I was even seeing a therapist. Case in point, I was a total mess. And even despite multiple doctors being mostly unconcerned and serial clean tests, the thought of “what if?” never failed to escape the back of my mind. In my head, it was a textbook case:
- twitching
- hand clumsiness
- fatigue
- shaky legs
- my PCP even noted “questionable thenar atrophy”
But guess what? Not ALS. I don’t know what it is. My doctors don’t know, either. I did have an EEG that showed some abnormally slow activity in the same spot where a brain MRI found a small collection of fluid, but it’s all so non-specific that I probably won’t get an answer for a good while despite already enduring a year of problems with no answers. Importantly, still not ALS.
So if you come here and the mods say you have nothing to worry about, please believe them. If you go to a neurologist and he/she tells you the same, please believe them. If you have an EMG and it’s clean, please believe it. If you think it was done “too early” and so you have two more within the same year that are also clean, please believe those.
To the mods, I hope you do not mistake this as parading around my (mostly) clean bill of health. Quite frankly, the internet does not deserve a community of amazing people such as yourselves who dedicate even a portion of their time to answer the endless questions that are posted here. You are all unbelievable people. I wish you well on your respective journeys and, barring a catastrophic turn of events, plan on this being my last post here...for real this time.
Best regards,
-Artie
I’ve been lurking here on and off for a little over a year and have even caved and posted a few threads. I just had my third clean EMG in 12 months. There was a point shortly after the onset of my symptoms where I was convinced I had ALS. I would come home from work and basically take depression naps. At one point I was even seeing a therapist. Case in point, I was a total mess. And even despite multiple doctors being mostly unconcerned and serial clean tests, the thought of “what if?” never failed to escape the back of my mind. In my head, it was a textbook case:
- twitching
- hand clumsiness
- fatigue
- shaky legs
- my PCP even noted “questionable thenar atrophy”
But guess what? Not ALS. I don’t know what it is. My doctors don’t know, either. I did have an EEG that showed some abnormally slow activity in the same spot where a brain MRI found a small collection of fluid, but it’s all so non-specific that I probably won’t get an answer for a good while despite already enduring a year of problems with no answers. Importantly, still not ALS.
So if you come here and the mods say you have nothing to worry about, please believe them. If you go to a neurologist and he/she tells you the same, please believe them. If you have an EMG and it’s clean, please believe it. If you think it was done “too early” and so you have two more within the same year that are also clean, please believe those.
To the mods, I hope you do not mistake this as parading around my (mostly) clean bill of health. Quite frankly, the internet does not deserve a community of amazing people such as yourselves who dedicate even a portion of their time to answer the endless questions that are posted here. You are all unbelievable people. I wish you well on your respective journeys and, barring a catastrophic turn of events, plan on this being my last post here...for real this time.
Best regards,
-Artie
