I am scared to death

[chrissi]

Jerry, cooooooooooooooooooool down, really. I'm sharing everythingyou have I think, even the hand pain, it has been preceeding my twitching! You're being pulled down by anxiety, really!!

[jerry2]

Thanx bobajojo. But the most twitching I do have in my left arm, the most severe twitches were in moving index finger and my left arm, others are not so intense. So I feared my left arm is crippled now and the disease is going elswhere. And the trembling in the left hand / arm at night is the muscles saying good bye and if I look my palm I see those 3 tendons and I am really in fear. Most of you don't see your tendons in the palm of your hand I guess... Truth is I don't know if ALS atients have this, only photos are how hand looks like when thumb atrophies the palm atrophy is not on any picture shown.

chrissi: I try to cool down, but I seem to be having some opsessive compulsing behviour, all I do this last days is try to find pictures and info about "finger arm twitching hand pain tendons visible" but can not find any clue other than ALS. It may be I have some other problem of the nerve or tendons that is chronic, but my mind keeps telling me I have a dying arm.

And today I feel my left hand is fatigued Maybe from the night tremor. I did 10 pushups yesterday and 10 day before to see if it is only my hand that is affected or my whole arm as my twitching is now in the arm near shoulder. Like in ALS it destroyes the hand and move up My tendons are visible now.

I don't know what to do, this anxiety would go away if I would have EMG or something today but of course this is not possible for few weeks at least. And I am really so scared I can not even cry and more. I know I should not picture yet my 7 year old grow without a father but I can not help it. I push the thought and it keeps coming back. And if I want to forget I can feel my pain in my hand, I can feel burning in my palm since yesterday when I had an ice pack on it and did some ultrasound massage (never again, I'll leave it alone) and if I am able to calm down for few minutes I get another twitch that tells me my muscle is dying.

I don't know how to say in English good, but it is something like a phrase here: I curse the day when I googled for finger twitch. I can not know wheather I have ALS or not, but if I didn't google I would be at least for now in a more calm mind state.

And yes, I could run 8 km yesterday, this is typical of ALS, isn't it. It is attacking my left hand not my leg yet. But I guess the pain started all and is related so it attacks it for 5 months now and this is end of hand or what :-8 I really only had finger twitching few days ago, how can my dents between tendons be so big, does the muscle go away without twitching also?

Because this is wierd. If the dents/swollen tendons (you really don't know if there are 2 hills or 1 wally, do you) that I saw FEW DAYS ago were there before, I didn't see them, so they could be there for months (but didn't hurt like now), that would say it could be ALS and it destroyed my hand in a few months. But if the dents were not there as I tell myself there is no way I would not see them, my wife saw when I showed my hand immediately), it they were not there that is a good sign I guess, because the came suddenly and I guess even ALS doesn't take the palm in 3 days so it has to be tendon swelling.

Thank you for all your confort, I keep writing and I know what I write is more and more confused

[chrissi]

Jerry, I have tendons in my healthy EMG-tested twitching and unfortunately hurting palms ever since. I even took a picture of these dents in my palmar thenar muscle:
https://picasaweb.google.com/Labormaus2007/Hand?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPf1if-blOnpSQ&feat=directlink I can also see the tendons that reach to the fingers, thering finger, middle and pointer finger. I saw pictures of you on facebook: you look tall and slim, amd for people like that it isquite normal . For me it is mostly in my left hand, I'm right handed and the right hand is much more meaty and muscular. Jerry: ESPECIALLY in the hand musclesweakness recedes athropy quite long. If you had lost weakness in your hands, you couldn't do a push up at all! And the muscles close to the sholder are the ones that just loooooooooove to twitch and vibrate , my right one doesit continoiusly. Tremors in ALS come-if they comeat all-very late when there is very very obvoius clinical weakness. Not after 10 push ups...And never come they when the mscles are relaxed e.g. at night. What you feel at night is what we call "internal tremors" some kind of vibration that can hardly be seen but strongly been felt. I have it in my right arm where it is attached to the shoulder and in my legs. Tremors in BFS often get terribly strong when you are doing exercise, e.g, liftups. But is is never to be misunderstood with clinical weakness. If you can do things it is not clinical weakness, and it doensn't matter how much you shke while doing it. I had members on this board comparing our bad tremors while doing liftups via skype. Same for other strange stuff, hey, many people here (me included) even get face and lip tremors. The hand pain is unfortunately a big issue here, I have a lot of pain in the padding of my thumb and in the area under my pinky and in the space between thumb and pointer. PAIN is not a sign for ALS. Some days the pain gets so bad I have to take Ibu (my legs are hurtiung too), but for me it all started with pain and stiffness in the fingers/hands. Be careful that your hands are kept warm, cold temperatures make it much worse. A lot of people here show signs of ulnar problems even with clean NCS, so I guess it isagain some weird typical BFS stuff

[jerry2]

Thank you for the post. I really don't know any more. Your tendons are not visible under flashlight at all, without it it is best visible on pic 4 when you don't have your hand stretched. But yes, they are visible on your hand also! On mine is it quite more visible especially the middle one looks terrible big (or the muscles around it are so none ). If calm down enough (my friend will bring me one Xanax altough I have never taken any such pills except before colonoscopy) I will post my hand, but I think you will say how visible tendons does he have. I fear becaue on the right they are not so visible and hand feels more muscular also. My wife has both hands quite similar.

How do your hands look like in reality? More like in pic 1 or 4? I mean you see tendons in palm if you have your hand stretched or not? When not stretched they can be seen somehow on my other hand also (but much less), but when s tretch right hand they are not visible at all, on the left they are more visible than your picture 6 which is where you had your hand stretched.

So you think if this would be atrophy around my tendons (I am not so anatomically good that I know which actions trigger this muscles) I coudln't do push ups? But I have palm on my hand when I do them, I guess this muscules do not need to work then.

I have hard time believing I could have this forever. Tendions on my left hand are more visible than the skin lines the palm readers read ;-/

Thank you for clarifying what is a internal tremor, didn't know the word. I am not 100% sure I have this as it is night and I can not know if it can be seen, but I guess it CAN, as I can FEEL IT if I tough my arm with the other hand, I can feel it. But yes, it feels like some kind of vibration, light shaking, something like that. It is not twitch I know. But I woke up today because of this shaking and when I realised where I am and what is happening I got few twitches in the arm So they can happen at night also, but yes, I was awake by then, so I can not know if I twitch during sleep. I guess not much, as it would wake me up.

BUT WAIT! The first, deadly twitch in in finger, that DID come when I slept and woke me up, not once but whole night. I have put finger behind my back not to twitch, I could still feel it but it was a little better because didn't move my finger

So you are telling me that at night ALS sufferers do not twitch or shake or vibrate?

I was doing pushups but the twitches started before that, few days before, they are not connected to my pushups.

I do have some signes of carpal tunnel (the pain in 3 fingers) and ulnar nerve (the sleep related tingling, numbness in my last 2 fingers sometimes).

Now my palm hurst becuse I have done ultrasound and massage and ice therapy on it (maybe there is some other reason), but now tendions bother me even more as I started to FEEL THEM one by one.

On ALS forums I saw some patients also got twitches over whole body and that there is also stifness and pain. I have all three (stifness of the last 2 fingers goes on and off even middle of the day, I had it just little before).

I will go to the doctor I don't mean to just whine. But it doesn't take so fast to get all appointments in y country it is a long time wait usually. I mean, when you are so depressed it could be ALS one month can mean a difference between sanity and insanity I guess.

This "internal tremor" came one night and never stopped at nights (I feel it almost every night, but family doctor was able to explain me why only at night WHY and didn't look concerned) and twitching finger came on sunday and ... it stopped for now... but other mucles started. That is feeding my anxiety, thing start suddenly and do not stop any more.

In reallity I do not know how ALS twitches work, I've seen youtube videos they look just like my arm, but of course I don't know are this constant or once in a while, do they twitch for months and then muscle is gone or is it like 2 days like my finger and the muscle is gone or what :-/

I do feel weak in left hand but it feels more like pain weakness not muscle weakness, it is just my thought but... But I could test arms quite good with pushups as my arms do not hurt me. Now I can think how weak am I to be able to do only 10 of them, but what I want to say is I can do them and I do not feel significally weaker in the left arm when doing it. A little, because my right arm is stronger, but it didn't how can I say, it didn't distubed me here and I am sure if it was very weak I would have noticed, I am alerted 100% unfortunately.

So about atrophy around tendons I don't know, about twitches I don't know, about this tremor I don't know, but I don't feel muscle weakness. As I said, I do have great trouble opening jar with left hand so I rather do not do it, but I understand the pain stops a persons strength. I had this problem on my right hand few months back and is better now, but I also couldn't open glass, my wife helped me and now it is ok on the right. Well, not 100%, I just found out I have hard time pressing with index finger also, it hurts me 10cm BELOW wrist on this main tendon that is visible in the inner part of the arm. Wierd. I keep telling myself this is no ALS striking my other hand now. Because I am telling to myself that if you have problem in one arm it can be something there, if you have problem in both must be a systemic disease and ALS is systemic. I have RA indications but one good thing is I am so bother with ALS that I don't dear RA at all Although it is a bad disease you can still have hope.

[chrissi]

Jerry, patients with ALS twitch over the whole body when the disease has progressed very far, also the pain comes in late stages of the progress. It is impossible that they did not get any clinical weakness at that point.

[jerry2]

Thanx, but the ALS patients I found tell that twitches preceeds and weaknes or atrophy

http://www.alsforums.com/forum/general- ... ching.html

I just read a blog of someone with ALS and his first signs were like mine (( Twitching in left shoulder and then between thumb and index finger :-/ Mine started just vice versa.

But if I am lucky to live... if the twitching stops in the next days, weeks... is it safe to assume this is not ALS? I know if it doesn't stop no one knows.

But twitching really seems to be the first sign from the ones that have it.

And I think I'll try to force not to read anything about ALS no more.

[jerry2]

Hi again

It's me again. I've had the worst day today.

I woke at 4am because my left hand (the "sick" one) middle finger couldn't move. I am not sure did I now sense it or just couldn't move it (I think I sensed it, because I know it was folder and I couldn't open it. It all happened so fast in few seconds it was back to normal. But I thought that I will be dead by morning. Managed to fall asleep again somehow hours later and woke up with my small and index finger tingling. Few moves and it was better. I fell asleep again and I woke up with "normal" fingers but trembling. This time I saw the pattern of trembling. Both hands and in between, so it means upper of the rib bone below neck. This part of the body only. After waking up didn't come back again.

But whole day I am feeling like on electricity, I can not describe the feeling. Been twitching, yes, more with some micro one time twitches but lot's of them and wierd like some buzzing feeling in my arms and hands mostly all day. Like half tingling, I can not describe. And both hands hurt me now (fingers and to elbow) like tendon pain I guess. Maybe cramps. I don't know. It is wierd and terrifying. Am I dying. Before 7 days I had some pain in my hands and I was a little trembling at night in my hands but that's it. One week later I feel like half paralised. I am not really paralised (except 3 seconds in the night) but I feel this was and I fear what now the night will bring me. WHen I sit my legs fell asleep to much easily, they never did so fast.

Is this ALS? In a week I went to electricity all overy my body with twitching and both hands numbness, tingling problems? Is that possible? Can anybody of you relate to this post? Am I going mad? Or am I dying and my neurons feel like electric storm because they are dying? I know you have twitches, but this kind of things? They are more than just twitches now. And every night bring me something worse, I hope to be able to feel my arm tommorow, really

I went in terror to the general doctor (it is saturday, my doctor didn't work I went to the general "ER", king of), and I told the doctor what is this and if she things I will live till monday (yes, it is not only ALS any more, it is now a fear I'll have a stroke or something this days, my left half of face is ... doesn't feel right, is that a stroke coming). Doctor was kind and listening and told me this is no stroke to her. She told me she didn't see any ALS patient in her 1 year career, but I didn't think she suspected ALS). She frankly told me this is all wierd. It could be anything or nothing she says. The symptoms are so different that do not point to any direction because each is pointing the other way. She gave me Helix, it is a mild sedative and I just took one (before going to try to sleep). I am sleep deprivated because if I sleep it is bad sleep and waking up with something missing every day - my sanity and some new thing in my body).

I try to think that even ALS can not go so fast. But LAS is not the only deadly thing when it comes to neurons and I really think I have a nerve and something problem. And this is where medicine really have the least clue in human body.

If anybody can relate to anything I wrote today, I'll be here a little while. If I am alive I write again tommorow.

Yours

Jerry

PS - I did manage to go out with my son and to go with bicycle to the "pizza hut" with him, it was sunny but cold. Whole day I could feel this wierd feeling of electricity in my body, falling asleep in my legs and just too much tingling over my arms, but I managed to survive the day somehow, it is the night that destroys me I think. Thank you for listening to my whinings.

[jerry2]

Oh yes, I found out if I extend my hand and make fingers apart to have force in hand, my last two fingers on both hands are trembling considerably. If I lighten the extension this is gone. And no, if you read my upper post you would see this is the least of my problems...

[RandyR]

Good Lord Jerry! Take a deep breath, then take another, and another....

See your still alive and nothing bad is going to happen. You need to calm down before you do cause yourself to have a heart attack. All your having is what many of us have gone thru, its nothing more than an aggrovation. Don't let fear controll your life like this any longer. It's crazy!


Why would you be dead tomorrow? Your the worse case of anxiety I have ever saw on here, I thought I was bad. Panic like this will make your symptoms 100 times worse so stop it, now! You need to snap out of it and listen to yourself. Do you have any anxiety medicine you can take to help with this, because that is all it is, ANXIETY!

[jerry2]

I have Helex, it is sedative.

Breeding doesn't help. I am still alive, but my neurons ... I don't know what is going on with them. Not able to move a finger. You really think anxiety could numb your finger?

[RandyR]

Alot of things can numb your finger, you said it was ok now. [email protected] does work that way, once its gone its gone. It would not work at all, EVER again. Just the way it is..

The more you panic the worse this crap gets. Stop going to the worst case scenario when something new pops up. That is where people get stuck, and I did the same thing. You are going way overboard. Stop reading things about [email protected] because you do not have that. Read into anxiety and google it's symptoms.

[jerry2]

Thanx! I have read faq here... I still don't get the difference between twitch and fasciculation. First seems a people word and the latter seems medical word. My arm twitch that is the most lasting is like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cat8rr9QS0 (not, that is not me!) Is that a twitch and fasciculation?

Yes, everyday I have anew symptom. I couldn't move my finger for 5 seconds when I woke up today, I can move it now yes. I have hard time holding things (pinch grip) with left hand because of the finger pain but that is a 5 months old story, I do not know if it is connected to this one at all.

It is hard to believe my mind could be making new twitches because of anxiety. Tha seems so... physics, law of electricity. When I did EMG or how it is called the electrodes you put with current in it on some muscles to stimulate them, made same kind of wierd twitches/fasciculations.

[RandyR]

To me a twitch and a fasiculation is the same thing. My doctors call them fasiculations and I call them twitches. I never heard the word fasiculation untill my doc ordered blood work for me and had it printed on the order.

Maybe somebody more educated can chime in if I am wrong, after all I am just a blue belt in google-fu, lots of second and third degree black belts on here who have mastered the art....

[jerry2]

I thought a twitch was when you finger moves without you noticing the muscle group in the upper side has a "storm", just a tick of a finger and the fasciculation is when you see this, electrical convulsion of the muscle. To my finger it moved to the right, but I could see the muscle in spasm between my thumb and index finger. In chrissy's video I was her fingers severly moving but I couldn't see the muscle groups before fingers stretching so I maybe thought this were like ticks (like if someone unvoluntarely moves a head, they are caled something like myotones (I can not remember the word), they happen before we dive into sleep, whole limb moves. Fasciculation is more dangerous (in a way that it can show to ilness) because the finger not only moves with whole finger muscle but you can see the one muscle group that triggers a move to the right or left).

But I guess you do have also simmilar twitches to the video I posted link? This is fasciculation.

My night went "the normal way", but nothing new and it could be worse. Today I didn't have stucked finger or numbness in the morning. But twitches in my left arm (severe at night) and the tremble in both hands between my slleping and waking up and sleeping again. For test I did lay still after I woke up for 30 minutes but the trembling didn't occur. To try to be funny once, I hope this is muscle doing the workout at night not the muscle dying.

Yours

Jerry

[jerry2]

Do any of your have twitches at night? Or only during day? I don't know while sleeping of course, but we all wke up for some moments in the night. I guess ALS twitches are also at night and mine are for sure, the first one, the "dreaded index finger twitch" woke me up in fact. Is this also in BFS or not?

Another symptom that I have during the day is this wierd tingling in hands and legs. Sometimes they feel like if they just waked up from sleep, it is not so severe but it feels like shaking or a neurologicall buzz in the nads, can anybody relate to that? And my legs keeps falling asleep during the day no metter in which position I sleep. Like my nerves did became 1000% more sensitive than a week ago

It is not only twitching at all.