DrewSmith1984
New member
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2011
- Messages
- 5
- Reason
- Learn about ALS
- Country
- US
- State
- Ohio
- City
- Lancaster
Ok, so long story short, I have been visiting the site for the past two years, or more accurately since I began to experience symptoms that I feel are indicative of some serious neurological disorder. That being said, I will go ahead and introduce myself and in the process describe the plethora of symptoms that I deal with on a pretty regular basis.
My name is Drew I am 27 and approximately two years ago, upon beginning college I began to develop body wide fasciculation’s that would range from the random thumpers to the non-stop annoying ones that take forever and a day to completely disappear. Naturally, since this was a new phenomenon I began to do a little research and it wasn’t long before I stumbled upon numerous websites stating that wide spread fasciculation’s can be an early sign of ALS.
Since that time, I have experienced many symptoms, most of which come and go, but never the less I still cant seem to shake this FEAR of the possibly having this dreaded disease. Below, in the bulleted points, I will briefly touch upon the symptoms that I have been dealing with.
•Fatigue: This, up to about one month was pretty much constant and it didn’t seem to correspond to the amount of physical work I did in the day and it was sufficiently reduced upon rest.
•Aches/ Pains: I get these every so often. They seem to appear out of nowhere and then disappear as fast as they appeared.
•TMJ: I hate TMJ (Just saying). This to seems to come and go and it doesn’t seem to correspond to an increase/decrease in my gabbing abilities. Sometimes it’s so bad, I can barely talk.
•Stiffness: Occurs body wide, comes and goes as it pleases.
•Perceived weakness: I get this off an on quite regularly. For instance, when walking down steps, my legs seem to shake, where as they never had before. I have no problem walking up steps. This lead to me closely examining/ comparing the attribute of my right leg (perceived weak one) with my left. Upon doing this I came to the realization that my right calf is approximately 1-1.5 cm smaller in circumference (measure at three spots) when compared to my left calf, I found this odd because I am right handed, so I assumed that I to would be right legged. I also noticed that when I squat and the back of my calf makes contact with my butt, there is a significant indentation that appears, which doesn’t appear on my left leg, so I fear that there may be some atrophy. Wanting to see if I could rectify this, I recently began to wear a 5lb ankle weight all day long, which I have had no problem doing over the course of the last few days, and I walk probably a couple miles a day.
•Difficulty talking (not related to TMJ): I get this sensation that my tongue feels thicker than usual and because of this I feel (even though nobody else seems to notice) that I have a distinct difficulty pronouncing and annunciating certain words. This to seems to come and go for no apparent reason.
•Difficulty swallowing: This to, comes and goes. It is like I have a slight lump in the back of my throat, somewhere above my Adams apple and it becomes more apparent when I eat something like a Ritz cracker that decrease the amount of saliva in my mouth/throat.
•GERD (Acid Reflux Disease): Don’t really feel that I need to elaborate on this. I will say that sometimes, when it really acts up, I will wake up in the middle of the night choking out a concoction of what I assume to be Acid, Saliva, and whatever I might have had to eat/drink before bed.
•Shortness of breath: Not much to say here. Comes and goes as it pleases.
• Body wide vibrations: Primarily, this seems to occur in my feet. However, if I have a pretty rigorous workout, I tend to get them all over my body.
•Numbness: This is difficult to explain. I woke up one day and I noticed that my leg was kind of numb; it was kind of like my right leg was partially awake and partially asleep, even though it did not have the pins and needles sensations. This lasted for approximately 2-3 months and right when I began to realize that this could possibly last forever it just vanished and since then (knock on wood) my leg has felt relatively normal.
•Recently I was looking at my right hand when I noticed that I had a slight dent in the middle part of my Thenar Eminence (don’t know the exact muscle) and upon further examination I; 1 realized that it definitely doesn’t occur on my left hand and 2 that below the little dent there is a larger divot that spans the length of approximately 2.5 centimeters, is about 1 cm wide and can only be seen when flexing my Thenar or holding my hand up to a light at just the right angle.
•Dropping things: I don’t know if I am actually dropping things more often or if its just that I am paying more attention to it since developing this fear of ALS. However, I notice that I seem to be clumsy with my hands (right hand in particular) and because of this I tend to drop things. Now, these things are not particularly heavy or awkward in shape and in fact most of them are relatively light things that I drop because I don’t pay attention to how I grab them. I guess this could have something to do with me being natural clumsy and up until now, I had no reason to really pay that much attention to it.
•Cloudy Urine: I seem to get this every once in a while and it doesn’t reflect the amount of water that I drink throughout the day. I also urinate quite often.
I cant really think of many more symptoms at this point in time, although I am sure that I will think of some more shortly.
Well, after reading that you are probably thinking “ Holy hell go see a doctor already”, well, in the past two years I have seen my GP two-three times and my Neurologist 3-4 times, both of which think that I am crazy. However, it’s hard to take their word when I inherently feel something is wrong. I have had a number of tests, which include the following:
•Thyroid: January of 2011. Results were normal
•Numerous blood tests January of 2011. Results were normal
•Clinical neurological Exam: February 2011. Results were normal
•CT Scan: February or March of 2011. Results were normal
•MRI: April 2011. Results were normal.
•EMG/ NCV: September 2011. Results were normal. Readings were taken from approximately 6-7 different spots on my Right Leg and my Right Arm (Both of which I see atrophy in). All the results were normal. I was wondering though, is it weird that my Neurologist wasn’t the person administering the test? I go to the VA and they have a specific type of doctor that ONLY does EMG/NCV studies.
•Clinical neurological Exam: September 2011. Once again all results were normal.
I don’t really know what else to say, I guess I am just curious to get some opinions (Should I worry of should I not worry)from people who deal with this dreadful disease on a daily basis. Please let me know what you think. I do know that over the course of two years many who are diagnosed with ALS go from being completely independent to being substantially disabled and that I probably do not have the disease, I am just scared and being just scared it starting to negatively affect my personal life.
Thanks,
Drew
My name is Drew I am 27 and approximately two years ago, upon beginning college I began to develop body wide fasciculation’s that would range from the random thumpers to the non-stop annoying ones that take forever and a day to completely disappear. Naturally, since this was a new phenomenon I began to do a little research and it wasn’t long before I stumbled upon numerous websites stating that wide spread fasciculation’s can be an early sign of ALS.
Since that time, I have experienced many symptoms, most of which come and go, but never the less I still cant seem to shake this FEAR of the possibly having this dreaded disease. Below, in the bulleted points, I will briefly touch upon the symptoms that I have been dealing with.
•Fatigue: This, up to about one month was pretty much constant and it didn’t seem to correspond to the amount of physical work I did in the day and it was sufficiently reduced upon rest.
•Aches/ Pains: I get these every so often. They seem to appear out of nowhere and then disappear as fast as they appeared.
•TMJ: I hate TMJ (Just saying). This to seems to come and go and it doesn’t seem to correspond to an increase/decrease in my gabbing abilities. Sometimes it’s so bad, I can barely talk.
•Stiffness: Occurs body wide, comes and goes as it pleases.
•Perceived weakness: I get this off an on quite regularly. For instance, when walking down steps, my legs seem to shake, where as they never had before. I have no problem walking up steps. This lead to me closely examining/ comparing the attribute of my right leg (perceived weak one) with my left. Upon doing this I came to the realization that my right calf is approximately 1-1.5 cm smaller in circumference (measure at three spots) when compared to my left calf, I found this odd because I am right handed, so I assumed that I to would be right legged. I also noticed that when I squat and the back of my calf makes contact with my butt, there is a significant indentation that appears, which doesn’t appear on my left leg, so I fear that there may be some atrophy. Wanting to see if I could rectify this, I recently began to wear a 5lb ankle weight all day long, which I have had no problem doing over the course of the last few days, and I walk probably a couple miles a day.
•Difficulty talking (not related to TMJ): I get this sensation that my tongue feels thicker than usual and because of this I feel (even though nobody else seems to notice) that I have a distinct difficulty pronouncing and annunciating certain words. This to seems to come and go for no apparent reason.
•Difficulty swallowing: This to, comes and goes. It is like I have a slight lump in the back of my throat, somewhere above my Adams apple and it becomes more apparent when I eat something like a Ritz cracker that decrease the amount of saliva in my mouth/throat.
•GERD (Acid Reflux Disease): Don’t really feel that I need to elaborate on this. I will say that sometimes, when it really acts up, I will wake up in the middle of the night choking out a concoction of what I assume to be Acid, Saliva, and whatever I might have had to eat/drink before bed.
•Shortness of breath: Not much to say here. Comes and goes as it pleases.
• Body wide vibrations: Primarily, this seems to occur in my feet. However, if I have a pretty rigorous workout, I tend to get them all over my body.
•Numbness: This is difficult to explain. I woke up one day and I noticed that my leg was kind of numb; it was kind of like my right leg was partially awake and partially asleep, even though it did not have the pins and needles sensations. This lasted for approximately 2-3 months and right when I began to realize that this could possibly last forever it just vanished and since then (knock on wood) my leg has felt relatively normal.
•Recently I was looking at my right hand when I noticed that I had a slight dent in the middle part of my Thenar Eminence (don’t know the exact muscle) and upon further examination I; 1 realized that it definitely doesn’t occur on my left hand and 2 that below the little dent there is a larger divot that spans the length of approximately 2.5 centimeters, is about 1 cm wide and can only be seen when flexing my Thenar or holding my hand up to a light at just the right angle.
•Dropping things: I don’t know if I am actually dropping things more often or if its just that I am paying more attention to it since developing this fear of ALS. However, I notice that I seem to be clumsy with my hands (right hand in particular) and because of this I tend to drop things. Now, these things are not particularly heavy or awkward in shape and in fact most of them are relatively light things that I drop because I don’t pay attention to how I grab them. I guess this could have something to do with me being natural clumsy and up until now, I had no reason to really pay that much attention to it.
•Cloudy Urine: I seem to get this every once in a while and it doesn’t reflect the amount of water that I drink throughout the day. I also urinate quite often.
I cant really think of many more symptoms at this point in time, although I am sure that I will think of some more shortly.
Well, after reading that you are probably thinking “ Holy hell go see a doctor already”, well, in the past two years I have seen my GP two-three times and my Neurologist 3-4 times, both of which think that I am crazy. However, it’s hard to take their word when I inherently feel something is wrong. I have had a number of tests, which include the following:
•Thyroid: January of 2011. Results were normal
•Numerous blood tests January of 2011. Results were normal
•Clinical neurological Exam: February 2011. Results were normal
•CT Scan: February or March of 2011. Results were normal
•MRI: April 2011. Results were normal.
•EMG/ NCV: September 2011. Results were normal. Readings were taken from approximately 6-7 different spots on my Right Leg and my Right Arm (Both of which I see atrophy in). All the results were normal. I was wondering though, is it weird that my Neurologist wasn’t the person administering the test? I go to the VA and they have a specific type of doctor that ONLY does EMG/NCV studies.
•Clinical neurological Exam: September 2011. Once again all results were normal.
I don’t really know what else to say, I guess I am just curious to get some opinions (Should I worry of should I not worry)from people who deal with this dreadful disease on a daily basis. Please let me know what you think. I do know that over the course of two years many who are diagnosed with ALS go from being completely independent to being substantially disabled and that I probably do not have the disease, I am just scared and being just scared it starting to negatively affect my personal life.
Thanks,
Drew