Very concerned

[Mike7120]

Hello, My name is Michael and I'm 36 years-old. About 10 years ago I was in a car accident and herniated two discs in my lower back. Since then I've experienced pretty constant muscle twitching in my calves. Up until about 1 week ago, these twitches only occurred in my calves. Unfortunately, for the past week I've been experiencing frequent twitching pretty much all over my body. My feet, quads, hams, back, shoulders, and left eye twitch constantly. Then, starting two nights ago, I developed a new symptom. As I'm about to fall asleep my arm, leg, or whole body violently jerks me awake. This happens all night long which makes sleeping very difficult. In addition, there are times in which I feel an internal tremor/vibration/shaking feeling, but I can't see it visually. Another symptom that I've been dealing with for the past few months is a constant feeling like I can't clear my throat good. I can often see thick mucus in the back of my throat, which takes several coughs to finally get it up, but my throat never truly feels clear. I'm currently being treated for severe reflux and allergies for my throat issues. I thought I was having issues with swallowing, but this cleared up after starting Prilosec 40 about 1 month ago. I have no issues with speech. I have no loss of muscle strength. I can still lift weights and run on the treadmill without issue. I haven't noticed any muscle atrophy. Today my legs feel like Jell-O, but this may be due to lack of rest and experiencing pretty bad anxiety.

I'm a nervous wreck right now. All day long I'm inundated with negative thoughts and at night I can't sleep. At first I attributed symptoms to stress, lack of sleep, over training (I workout a lot), reaggravating my herniated disc (my back and neck has been hurting me a lot), too much caffeine, anxiety, etc. But now, I'm seriously concerned I may have ALS. I have three elementary-aged kids and the thought of not being around for them is devastating.

I have an appointment to see a neurologist next week.

Thank you for reading. Any thoughts, input, advice, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TippiLeigh]

People with ALS have some of your symptoms, but many of your symptoms aren’t associated with ALS. I am so happy you have an appointment with a neurologist next week. During these times, it’s been hard for many people to even get an appointment. They are your best first step. They will check for a clinical weakness and probably order a lot of bloodwork and scans. ALS notoriously takes a long time to diagnose. Hopefully you don’t have it (only a neurologist can tell you for sure). It’s considered a rare disease, so take some comfort in that. Please come back after your appointment. I’d love to know how it went.

 

[lgelb]

Ask about being screened for RLS/PLMD. It can occur during the day as well, but it's classic to jerk "at rest" at night, especially if moving gets you past it for a while.

The rest of your issues are easily ascribable to poor sleep, apart from the disk pain that I would suggest consideration of PT to address first line. I see no reason to worry about ALS.

Best,
Laurie

 

[Mike7120]

Thanks for your replies. I will let you know how my neurologist appointment goes next week.