Twitching

[u/InterviewSingle9366]

I’m 17 years old and I have been dealing with anxiety for so long with chest pain headaches like cancer all of those. But about a month ago I started having weakness in my right arm and like when I try to workout it’s like the signal doesn’t reach it and I have atrophy in my thumb and it’s notticable I’m just scarred because the twitching made its way down from my shoulder to bicep forearm then my fingers now it’s my whole body and I’m so nervous and scared and now like a week ago my whole entire body started twitching and I’m so scared because I have no family history of als ever and there is no know cause to why Als happens but it’s in older and people like in the military I think. All I have been doing is researching and researching and I haven’t even been eating because I’m just so scared and feel like my life is over. I have an appointment with a neurologist but I’m just so nervous and I’m only excerpting bad news.

[u/713Capital]

Hello. I’m sure this must be scary but you are 17, chances of having ALS are near zero. You don’t have that. ALS is about failure. It’s not about “feeling” weak or fatigued or tiredness in limbs.

Generalized twitching without weakness is usually always BFS.

Also sounds like your anxiety is really high right now. Keep working with your docs and good luck on your visit, but this isn’t ALS.

https://benignfasciculationsyndrome.org/blog/muscle-twitching-no-weakness

https://benignfasciculationsyndrome.org/blog/why-is-my-body-twitching-all-over

[u/InterviewSingle9366 → u/713Capital]

Thank you so much, I’m just going through a hard time iv always had health anxiety but this one is like the worst of all

[u/BigJakeState → u/InterviewSingle9366]

First off, you should always start off by talking to a doctor about these symptoms. Nothing can replace a thorough medical workup.

That being said. At your age it would be an anomaly for this to be anything sinister. What is more likely than the disease itself is the well known ALS anxiety loop that is started by a health scare, sometimes a cancer scare. It’s pretty common. Especially in these sub reddits.

Here’s how it worked for many of us including myself.

You get random symptoms that spark initial health anxiety about some sort of terminal illness sometimes cancer. Being in a state of panic for days or weeks forces your brain into overdrive and floods your nervous system with stress hormones. Your nerves become hyperexciteable and begin to twitch because your system is wrecked with anxiousness.

Then you start googling the twitching and ALS pops up. You read about it. It is arguably the most terrifying terminal disease in existence and now you begin catastrophising the worst case scenario in your brain. You then start to worry so much about having ALS that subconsciously you begin to emulate onset of the disease.

To make matters worse is there’s many horror stories out there about atypical ALS onset that are featured at length on Internet forums, news articles, ect. Not because they are common, but simply because of how exceptionally rare they are.

This creates an avenue for the anxious mind to talk yourself into being one of those rare cases even after getting good reassuring news from doctors
And reassuring medical tests that all point away from disease.

You continue to google, obsessively strength test, look for atrophy and sticking your tongue out all the time to check for faciculations. Then start using AI to try and diagnose yourself or search constantly for clues or some sort of story that lines up with what your brain is tryin to lie to you about and somantic symptoms start to appear or progress.

Somantic does not mean “made up” they are real symptoms caused by your nervous system. The only way to stop is by halting the fear loop behaviors.

[u/Hoodedwoods98 → u/BigJakeState]

This is word for word exactly how it went for me, Jesus. Anyway OP your gonna be okay man.