worried: EMG fasciculations & one fib

[combray]

I am a 39 year old male in good general health. I have been having fasciculations, primarily in my legs and feet (both right and left) from the knees down (with some in my thighs and buttocks), for about three months. The fasciculations are constant and frequent and felt. I am also now having some cramping and "tiredness" in my legs, no noticeable weakness so far and no atrophy. No problems with walking at all, good balance, no stumbling.

I had a normal neuro/muscular examination about 2 weeks ago. Then on Thursday I had an EMG and also a nerve conductivity test too (I think).

The EMG showed lots of fasciculations from the knees down in both legs, above the knees everything looked good, no fascis at all showed up. The doctor did find one fibrillation or fibrillation potential (not sure if these are the same thing) in one muscle in my right leg. He said the fibrillation could be caused by physical injury/trama since it was only in the one muscle and since I am a runner he felt it was possible that the fib was due to injury.

The doctor felt ALS was unlikely without weakness, but he could not rule out that this is very early stages of ALS. Next, he wants to do an MRI of my lower spine (lower spine x-rays were normal), I think primarily to rule out tumors near the spine.

I guess my questions are: can a fibrillation be caused by injury from running? He also stated that a fib in only one location and in only one limb was not a clinically significant finding (that to be indicative of muscle neuron disease fibs must be found in multiple limbs. Is this true?
Sorry for such a long post. As you can guess I am worried sick. Thank you for taking the time to read my post.
CK

 

[hopingforcure]

What your doctor say's sounds like perfect sense to me. While I am not a neuro I have done a ton of personal research on emg findings. In my humble opinion with all of the twitching and such, weakness and atrophy should be among the picture. I would also think the doc would have seen denervation and reniveration. Maybe are helpful member Wright will see your post and chime in, but I would say relax. Being a runner could make a lot of sense to me. The MRI will maybe shed light on something else. Welcome to the forum, glad you found us, hope we can be of support.

 

[Zaphoon]

CK,

The news is very good so far! If you had ALS, the EMG would most likely have shown a lot more going on. Usually, one of the first things people notice with ALS is that they can no longer perform tasks with the same amount of ease. Some notice trouble with walking (tripping or balance problems); some notice trouble speaking (slurred speech) and others notice trouble turning a key in a lock.

A part of having ALS is weakness. As long as you are not experiencing weakness and muscle atrophy, you should not fear having ALS.

There are many things that can bring on fasciculations other than ALS, stress is just one of them.

Zaphoon

 

[combray]

Thank you for the reassuring responses. Stress is definitely abundant in my life at the moment! I do very much appreciate your taking the time to respond to my post. I think tonight I will go for a nice long walk and see if that perhaps helps with the stress at least.
ck