by Chick on July 1st, 2008, 2:35 pm
The base of my left thumb began twitching two weeks ago this Thursday. When it hadn't stopped, after that weekend, I made an appointment with my PCP (last Friday). After a glance, my doc said, "What did you think you had, MS?" I said, "No, I thought it was the onset of Parkinson's." My doc diagnosed the twitching as BSF. I told my doc that I'd also made an appointment to see a neurologist; he agreed that it would be a good idea (more so to put my mind at ease). Yesterday, I saw the neurologist (the NYU Medical Center's dept. head).
After running me through the requisite "walk a line, tongue extension, fold your arms & close your eyes and strength tests" he diagnosed my twitches as BFS. He didn't say anything about scheduling an EMG so I'm guessing he didn't think it was necessary. The neuro also wrote me a 2mg/dose Klonopin script (I've had a moderate anxiety disorder for going on 11 years). But now I'm driving myself nuts with thoughts of ALS sneaking up on me even though the neuro told me that 99.9% of the time BFS sufferers have nothing to worry about (unless I start experiencing muscle weakness/atrophy).
This morning, my left forearm started bubbling; then my left kneecap; then thye bak of my left thigh. Great. Now it looks like I've got a long "waiting for the shoe to drop" life ahead of me. How do I get through this?