kjkennedy
New member
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2022
- Messages
- 2
- Reason
- Learn about ALS
- Diagnosis
- 00/0000
- Country
- US
- State
- CA
- City
- Los Angeles
Hi All,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this and help me, I really appreciate all of you. Like many of the people on this forum, I’m concerned that I might have ALS. I’m writing this out in hopes that anyone can tell me if it sounds familiar or if anyone started with similar symptoms?
In July of 2021 I had a fairly traumatic experience that led me to an ER for other health issues. I noticed that immediately after that visit, I began twitching all over (legs, arms, abdomen, back, shoulders, feet, etc). The twitches are visible but they aren’t very strong and they're pretty fast before moving on. They feel like pops of popcorn and occasionally I get twitches that feel like fluttering. The twitching is all over my body.
Lately, they seem to have moved to my upper eyelids, inside of my ear, and thenar muscle of my hand, that's in addition to everywhere else but these are new locations. So far, I don’t think the twitching has affected my tongue. Sometimes I get what feels like a tiny electric zap in my tongue and I wonder if it was a twitch but I just look like an idiot sticking my tongue out in the mirror because I don't see anything out of the norm.
With all of that in mind, I was pretty much oblivious to any other health concerns until around October 2021 when I thought I injured my lower back while exercising. The back pain hasn’t gone away and in fact, the thoracic part of my back started hurting as well. I chalked it up to poor posture but changing my posture hasn’t helped. Then I started noticing that when I was lifting weights during my workouts (not heavy weights, 5 lb…maybe 8 lb weights) I would get small bruises on the inside of my upper arms which was new. That never used to happen and then it started happening every time I would lift these weights. I got spooked and basically quit exercising for that reason at the beginning of November.
Also in November… I was scheduled for an MRI of the brain and cervical spine, the same day I was scheduled for the MRI I got what I can only imagine is nerve pain in my right arm. My arm felt weak and I had the most uncomfortable sensation that was so uncomfortable I would venture to say it was painful. It wasn’t clinical weakness because after that episode passed I went back to normal. I went about the holiday season just twitching like I have been with the added back pain. At one point I thought I’d gotten the twitching down so there weren't as many but then they started up again closer to Christmas and I chalked it up to anxiety and stress.
I almost forgot to mention that for the last month/ month and a half…my shoulders haven’t physically felt the same. I know it sounds silly but both shoulders feel like they’re losing muscle when I touch them, especially around the caps of the shoulders. When I started to exercise again after the holidays I noticed I couldn’t lift the 8 lb weights like I used to, I had to take it down a notch and my shoulders felt shaky when doing push ups but I could still do them.
Sleeping is very uncomfortable as it feels as though my shoulders and upper back bones are pushing into my mattress even though when I look in the mirror nothing looks too unusual and no drastic changes yet from what I can tell. I feel that I can notice a difference but no one else can (I’ve been asking my family to inspect) I’ve also been waking up with numb arms (both of them go numb but not at the same time, usually its whatever arm is on the side im sleeping on) even when I make an effort not to sleep on them. Ive always been a side sleeper and this has never happened before. This leads me to believe I am in fact losing muscle and its compressing nerves to lay down? I’m clearly not a doctor but that’s what I’m thinking.
I make it sound like I exercise regularly but I don’t. This whole thing has really spooked me, so sometimes I’ll try to get a light workout in but I think I’ve exercised maybe once in the last two weeks just to give an idea. The muscles in my upper back and shoulders feel like theyre burning even if I haven’t exercised and my right bicep feels like I've worked it out but I havent.
About a week ago I had a terrible (I’m going to call it an attack because I don’t know what else to call it) attack of what feels like burning sensation and internal nails on a chalk board (nerve pain?) across both shoulders and into the upper part of my right arm. It was so painful, I wish I could describe the pain better. The upper part of my right arm/shoulder occasionally gets that worn out feeling as if I’d worked out too hard (when I haven’t worked out at all) but as far as I know, I haven’t lost the ability to do anything yet. I can still lift palettes of water at the grocery store for example.
Does any of this sound like ALS to you all? I don’t know what to think.
I just started getting twitches in the thenar (I think that’s what its called) part of my palm which is concerning as well because that muscle feels sore now. I’m trying not to worry but clearly something is wrong and I have to wait until the end of the month to see my neurologist again.
My first MRI came back with an 8mm lesion in the white matter of my parietal lobe but aside from that there wasn’t anything notable to report on the MRI. My main symptom for about 3-4 months was twitching before I started to feel everything else. The neurologist doesn’t know about all of these other things I’m prattling on about yet. My CST scan was fine so no lesions in the cervical spine or Cortico spinal tract just some minor bulging of the discs. The neurologist has confirmed that I do not have MS so if it's not MS...does this sound like ALS?
Thank you all again for all of your help!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this and help me, I really appreciate all of you. Like many of the people on this forum, I’m concerned that I might have ALS. I’m writing this out in hopes that anyone can tell me if it sounds familiar or if anyone started with similar symptoms?
In July of 2021 I had a fairly traumatic experience that led me to an ER for other health issues. I noticed that immediately after that visit, I began twitching all over (legs, arms, abdomen, back, shoulders, feet, etc). The twitches are visible but they aren’t very strong and they're pretty fast before moving on. They feel like pops of popcorn and occasionally I get twitches that feel like fluttering. The twitching is all over my body.
Lately, they seem to have moved to my upper eyelids, inside of my ear, and thenar muscle of my hand, that's in addition to everywhere else but these are new locations. So far, I don’t think the twitching has affected my tongue. Sometimes I get what feels like a tiny electric zap in my tongue and I wonder if it was a twitch but I just look like an idiot sticking my tongue out in the mirror because I don't see anything out of the norm.
With all of that in mind, I was pretty much oblivious to any other health concerns until around October 2021 when I thought I injured my lower back while exercising. The back pain hasn’t gone away and in fact, the thoracic part of my back started hurting as well. I chalked it up to poor posture but changing my posture hasn’t helped. Then I started noticing that when I was lifting weights during my workouts (not heavy weights, 5 lb…maybe 8 lb weights) I would get small bruises on the inside of my upper arms which was new. That never used to happen and then it started happening every time I would lift these weights. I got spooked and basically quit exercising for that reason at the beginning of November.
Also in November… I was scheduled for an MRI of the brain and cervical spine, the same day I was scheduled for the MRI I got what I can only imagine is nerve pain in my right arm. My arm felt weak and I had the most uncomfortable sensation that was so uncomfortable I would venture to say it was painful. It wasn’t clinical weakness because after that episode passed I went back to normal. I went about the holiday season just twitching like I have been with the added back pain. At one point I thought I’d gotten the twitching down so there weren't as many but then they started up again closer to Christmas and I chalked it up to anxiety and stress.
I almost forgot to mention that for the last month/ month and a half…my shoulders haven’t physically felt the same. I know it sounds silly but both shoulders feel like they’re losing muscle when I touch them, especially around the caps of the shoulders. When I started to exercise again after the holidays I noticed I couldn’t lift the 8 lb weights like I used to, I had to take it down a notch and my shoulders felt shaky when doing push ups but I could still do them.
Sleeping is very uncomfortable as it feels as though my shoulders and upper back bones are pushing into my mattress even though when I look in the mirror nothing looks too unusual and no drastic changes yet from what I can tell. I feel that I can notice a difference but no one else can (I’ve been asking my family to inspect) I’ve also been waking up with numb arms (both of them go numb but not at the same time, usually its whatever arm is on the side im sleeping on) even when I make an effort not to sleep on them. Ive always been a side sleeper and this has never happened before. This leads me to believe I am in fact losing muscle and its compressing nerves to lay down? I’m clearly not a doctor but that’s what I’m thinking.
I make it sound like I exercise regularly but I don’t. This whole thing has really spooked me, so sometimes I’ll try to get a light workout in but I think I’ve exercised maybe once in the last two weeks just to give an idea. The muscles in my upper back and shoulders feel like theyre burning even if I haven’t exercised and my right bicep feels like I've worked it out but I havent.
About a week ago I had a terrible (I’m going to call it an attack because I don’t know what else to call it) attack of what feels like burning sensation and internal nails on a chalk board (nerve pain?) across both shoulders and into the upper part of my right arm. It was so painful, I wish I could describe the pain better. The upper part of my right arm/shoulder occasionally gets that worn out feeling as if I’d worked out too hard (when I haven’t worked out at all) but as far as I know, I haven’t lost the ability to do anything yet. I can still lift palettes of water at the grocery store for example.
Does any of this sound like ALS to you all? I don’t know what to think.
I just started getting twitches in the thenar (I think that’s what its called) part of my palm which is concerning as well because that muscle feels sore now. I’m trying not to worry but clearly something is wrong and I have to wait until the end of the month to see my neurologist again.
My first MRI came back with an 8mm lesion in the white matter of my parietal lobe but aside from that there wasn’t anything notable to report on the MRI. My main symptom for about 3-4 months was twitching before I started to feel everything else. The neurologist doesn’t know about all of these other things I’m prattling on about yet. My CST scan was fine so no lesions in the cervical spine or Cortico spinal tract just some minor bulging of the discs. The neurologist has confirmed that I do not have MS so if it's not MS...does this sound like ALS?
Thank you all again for all of your help!
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