I first want to start by saying I am very grateful this website exists and that it has been, at times, very comforting to me.
However I find myself continuously questioning what is going on with my body and having overwhelming fears that I have a horrible disease(namely ALS) that is going to take my life sometime in the near future. I have put off writing a message here because it seems like my symptoms are to numerous to even begin writing about. I have gotten to a point now however that I am so depressed it takes all I can do to get out of bed in the morning. I really need help! I guess I'll just start by giving as brief a history as possible.
I'm a 34 year old female.
My symptoms started off almost two years ago when I had an unusual occourance happen. I woke up one morning to find, when I looked in the mirror, that one of my pupils was dilated. A trip to the eye doctor, led to a trip to the hospital to have an MRI. The MRI showed that I had two white matter lesions in my brain. This of course led to a trip to the neurologist who did a neruo exam on me for symptoms of MS. The neurologist said that he did not feel I had MS and that these lesions were probably just normal for me. I felt better and went on about my life with few concerns.
About 6 months later I started having the dreaded twitches in my legs and tingling sensations. I got very scared that this was a sign of MS and went back to the same neurologist. An MRI of my lumbar spine was done and was clinically insignificant, just some mild disc degeneration of the spine. An EMG was also done and found to be completely normal. I was again assured by the neurologist the I probably had some nerve irritation but that it was not severe enough to show up on an EMG. Again I felt better and worried less about having MS.
Over the course of the following 6 months I began to have tremors in my hands and the twitches started to happen in my shoulders and arms and right leg also. I then did what I probalbly should never have done and looked up muscle twitching to find that it is a symptom of ALS. I became very scared and went back to the neurologist. Exactly a year after my first MRI of the brain, another one was done showing only the same two lesions and no new ones. The neurologist said that this was even more conformation to him that I did not have MS. I brought up ALS and he looked at me as if I were crazy. He said there was no way I had ALS, that he'd be able to spot that right away. He basically said that he thought the twitching was due to stress and that I needed to stop worrying so much. As for the tremors he felt they were of the essential variety and that the stress I was under was making them worse.
Over the course of the next 6 months things continued to worsen with more and more twitching and the hand tremors getting worse along with the new symptoms of widespread muscle pain and stiffness. During this time I had a MRI of the cervical spine ordered by a pain doctor with the results showing no clinical significance. Also was seen by a rheumitologist who diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. Was put on Klonopin by the pain doctor, and Zoloft by my internist. My job started to be affected as it requires a significant amount of manual dexterity and prolonged periods of standing. I was in a lot of pain and my fingers were begining to twitch a lot. If I pressed down on something with any force my fingers would just twitch and shake like crazy. Went back to the neuro guy, AGAIN, in November of 2002. By my insistance he did another EMG of my left leg and arm muscles, since that side was worse, and it came back completely normal. No fasiculations were even found. At this point he said put me on Inderal to help with the tremors and reassured me that I didn't have any kind of dreadful disease and that my fasiculations were of a benign nature probably caused by irritation of nerve endings.
Since November, my symptoms have continued to get worse. I had a lumbar puncture with completely normal results. My fingers twitches are continuous along with having widespread twitches that migrate everywhere in my body. I also get the vibrating muscles in my legs and feet. I have low-grade fevers on a regular basis. I've had tons of bloodwork done, including thyroid testing, and it's all normal. My muscles have continued to get tighter and tighter( which I read is also a symptom of ALS). To make matters worse, I was in a fairly severe car accident this April, and since than everything has just been magnified it seems like by a 100 x's. My muscles in my whole body are now tighter than they have ever been and my hands and fingers stiff and twitching continuosly.
Needless to say, I am at an all time low. I have gotten so depressed it's hard to function. I can't get it through my head that I am not afflicted with a dreadful disease, namely ALS. I don't really have weakness but my muscles are so stiff that it is hard to move them, especially my hands and fingers. I can't do my job as well as I should because of this, which is really scaring me. I just started physical therapy because of the car accident and so far it hasn't helped. I don't know how I'm going to continue to work with these kind of things going on with me.
I'm sorry this is such a long post! I didn't know how I could make it any shorter. I guess I'm looking for some reasurrance that I've done everything I should do and to see if anyone out there has experienced the same physical manifestations that I have, especially the severity of the finger twitches and the muscle stiffness.
Please help!
Lee
YOU SOUND SO MUCH LIKE ME THAT I ALMOST THOUGHT THAT WAS MY POST, JUST KIDDING.
