Smitch
New member
- Joined
- May 3, 2017
- Messages
- 4
- Reason
- Learn about ALS
- Country
- US
- State
- KY
- City
- Louisville
I'm writing because I've frequented these forums in the past few months. I've read all the stickies, searched past posts, etc. I'm consumed with worry.
Last spring, I bent wrong getting a toy for my son and something shifted in my back. I couldn't feel my leg for 3 months, and I had weakness in my calf. After chiropractor treatments of traction, needling, and adjustments, the feeling came back in my leg. Around October or November of last year my leg started twitching in that calf. It wasn't noticeable at first but it gradually got stronger. I took a video of my twitching muscle at the end of November. The twitching then became body wide. I twitch in my arms, legs, back, stomach, eyelids. I started taking magnesium and vitamin D but I continued to twitch. I saw a neurologist who did strength tests and an EMG and a ncs. Everything was normal except he told me he saw "healing nerve damage" my left back leg. He told me to come back if I noticed weakness.
I then went to an orthopedic who did an X-ray on my back and noted narrowing in my L5-S1 region and early arthritis to my lower back. He then told me twitching wasn't related at all, and rx'd PT and to see a gp for something possibly metabolic.
I continue to twitch mainly in my left leg, but all over as well. I don't think lower back damage would cause bodywide twitching. I've also started cramping in my left calf mainly when I go up on my tiptoe, but it has woken me up a few times in the middle of the night. I also have perceived weakness.
I'm writing here because I've read on this forum and several other places that some twitch for years and years before a diagnosis. That it isn't always weakness that starts the diegnosis, but sometimes twitching before weakness. That sometimes it takes several emg's to find evidence of als, and that several have had clean emg's only to then have a dirty one. I read all the initial stickys and I know these things that I've read contradict that, and how can I believe the sticky when other posts show otherwise.
At this point my brain says early als, nothing else. I have a follow up with a different ortho next week and I plan to get a second opinion from another neurologist soon. I am already having thoughts about not being here for my husband and sweet son in the future. The worry is affecting me more than I thought.
Please give me insight. I can't keep up.
Last spring, I bent wrong getting a toy for my son and something shifted in my back. I couldn't feel my leg for 3 months, and I had weakness in my calf. After chiropractor treatments of traction, needling, and adjustments, the feeling came back in my leg. Around October or November of last year my leg started twitching in that calf. It wasn't noticeable at first but it gradually got stronger. I took a video of my twitching muscle at the end of November. The twitching then became body wide. I twitch in my arms, legs, back, stomach, eyelids. I started taking magnesium and vitamin D but I continued to twitch. I saw a neurologist who did strength tests and an EMG and a ncs. Everything was normal except he told me he saw "healing nerve damage" my left back leg. He told me to come back if I noticed weakness.
I then went to an orthopedic who did an X-ray on my back and noted narrowing in my L5-S1 region and early arthritis to my lower back. He then told me twitching wasn't related at all, and rx'd PT and to see a gp for something possibly metabolic.
I continue to twitch mainly in my left leg, but all over as well. I don't think lower back damage would cause bodywide twitching. I've also started cramping in my left calf mainly when I go up on my tiptoe, but it has woken me up a few times in the middle of the night. I also have perceived weakness.
I'm writing here because I've read on this forum and several other places that some twitch for years and years before a diagnosis. That it isn't always weakness that starts the diegnosis, but sometimes twitching before weakness. That sometimes it takes several emg's to find evidence of als, and that several have had clean emg's only to then have a dirty one. I read all the initial stickys and I know these things that I've read contradict that, and how can I believe the sticky when other posts show otherwise.
At this point my brain says early als, nothing else. I have a follow up with a different ortho next week and I plan to get a second opinion from another neurologist soon. I am already having thoughts about not being here for my husband and sweet son in the future. The worry is affecting me more than I thought.
Please give me insight. I can't keep up.