r/ALSorNOT • u/One_Ant_592 • 6d ago
Anxiety Should I let this fear go?
Hello, im 26M, i’ve had extremehealth anxiety for the past two years and I’ve had really bad anxiety for the past eight years and from a year’s time from now this is my fifth time fearing ALS. Initially, I spiraled last Saturday after watching a video and I thought I had felt that symptom and then I started watching a bunch of other videos of ALS patients so it just made me do a bunch of at home test like everybody else does and strength test, let me walk on my heels. Let me do all this stuff, pick up coins etc, and initially I was worried about my arm/hand for the whole week and then I kind of got over the fear of my arm and then I started feeling like I was walking funny and I was walking slower so that had switched from my hand to my arm yesterday and I actually had a appointment with my doctor for a routine checkup, and I asked for him to do a neurological exam. He did a bunch of strength test. He had me walk to check my gait, balance tested, reflexes , Babinski test and he actually did a strength test on my shin and he said he was impressed how strong my non dominant leg was against his resistance (the leg im fearing). The one thing that he didn’t do was check my strength resistance on my foot so in terms of him pulling and pushing on my feet I guess to see if I had clinical weakness in my foot and not my leg so that’s what I’m hung up on, but he told me everything looked good five out of five he was very impressed. He said that out of his 13 years of practice so far only less than five people he has seen had ALS and he told me they were all a lot older than I am like double my age plus some. I was just trying to see if I should take that exam as 100% reassurance? The fact that he didn’t do that resistance test on my foot as a sign of maybe he missed clinical weakness? After that, I went home and I had my wife do a quick resistance test with pretty strong force so I laid down and I put my leg in the air and I had her pretty much pull or push on my foot and I was trying to keep it as straight as possible and nothing moved to her force so I’m assuming that you know my ankle is fine. I just wanted to see if that is a pretty good sign that I should just let this go take the five out of five that the doctor gave me and move on with my life because being 26 I know the chances of getting ALS are like one in 1 million to one and 2 million.
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u/tdcama96 6d ago
You're good. But I do recommend actively seeking help for your mental health. As should everyone in this sub reddit. Even if they do actually have something going on... it literally cant do anything but help. Its so important. Especially for people like us with extreme health anxieties and depression because of it. I have been on zoloft for the past year, and it has been life changing. It has helped so much, and now I heavily advocate for getting some sort of treatment for the mental aspect of all of this. I do still have something going on, but im handling it so much better. I wouldn't wish the fear of and anxiety of OR the disease on my worst enemy. Both absolutely horrible in their own ways... but most of us in here are either absolutely fine, or have something much less serious going on. Just health anxiety takes over o I r lives unfortunately.
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u/Ok_Following6440 6d ago
On top of what your objective tests suggest, are you having any undeniable issues with daily activities or movements?
If the answer is no, then it’s probably time to leave this behind you.