by Arron on March 5th, 2004, 6:47 pm
Most involuntary jerks and jolts are called "Myoclonic jerks" and are very common, especially with BFS. There are also a lot of twitches that move whole limbs, (fingers, arms, legs) that come and go, that have nothing to do with stress of Lyme, and are no indication what so ever of anything bad or any "disease".
A good portion of the population gets large myoclonic jolts on occasion, just as they fall asleep, when you all of the sudden "jump" and wake-up, as if you walked-off a curb and tripped in your sleep. This is common and is an exaggerated version of a concious myoclonic jolt. They can come in all sizes and shapes.
You can't blame stress and Lyme on everything. It has been talked about over and over on here in years gone-by, and shown positively that there are just as many people that were not the least bit stressed or anxious before (or when) their twitches started, as there are people who are anxious or stressed all of the time when their twitches started.
The jerks and jolts are common symptoms in BFS and Fibro, and although they may appear to be RLS, Lyme, anxiety or whatever related... there are also many tests to prove otherwise. Just because it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, doesn't mean it always a duck. It could be a mud hen or a goose.
My point is, there are lots of "diseases", "conditions" and "syndromes" that have many symptoms that mimmick many benign conditions, and just because one or a couple are similar, it certainly doesn't mean they have anything at all to do with one of the "diseases". A headache certainly doesn't mean you have a brain tumor....
BFS is real. It is a "condition" that is somehow aquired, be it viral, bacterial, or it's was just your lucky day... either way, there is absolutely no evidence anywhere that BFS is Lyme, or is stress caused or anxiety caused.
And Pole, you said "with clean MRI you don't have MS. MRI is a golden test for MS and if it is clean MS is ruled out."
That is not true. It depends on how far along the MS lesions have progressed to be seen, and whether the MRI was done with contrast or not, and besides, there are just as many lumbar MS cases as there are brain cases. How can you see lumbar MS with a brain MRI? It can be very easily missed. I have had MRI's of the brain (looking for MS) and have a few buddies that are specialists that always say that is can take several YEARS for MS to show-up on an MRI. It's not like an EMG where you don't have to "see" with your eye. The instruments pick-up conductivity problems and activity, such as fasciculations in ALS patients, where MRI's rely on the clarity, size of the lesions and the eyes of the doctor performing the inspection of the images. Very much like a mamogram or an x-ray. If the films aren;t clear, or the doctor forgot to put-on his glasses or just isn;t paying attention, it will make for a clean diagnosis, and how many people have you heard who actually had breast cancer right after they had clean mamograms or clean x-rays? I've heard of plenty, and my own mother, and my best friend's mother are living proof, and unfortunately, three of my friend's weren't as lucky with throat cancer and colon cancer, and all three had MRI's, CT scans AND X-rays. Sometimes what's there doesn't show-up, or the doctor just wasn't paying attention. So there is no positive rule whern it comes to MRI's and the like.
Cindy Williams (Shirley of the Laverne and Shirley TV show) was finally diagnosed with MS after years and years of odd symptoms and numerous MRI's. There was a spacial on that a while back and she too said her doctors said it can take years to show-up "clinically". And I'm sure she can afford the best of the best, so it's not like she's relying on some fly-by-night medical facility.
It isn't always hard science that determines an accurate diagnosis in SOME incidences. ALS (fortuantely) is a pretty positive thing to diagnose (so don't any of you freak-out), with EMG's and such. If you have twitching, and it was ALS related, being that twitches are a SECONDARY action CAUSED by dying nerve connections and muscle tissue, if you have a clean EMG and you already were twitching, it is about as proof positive that you do NOT have ALS as you can get. Unlike the accuracy of an MRI diagnosing MS.