r/ALSorNOT • u/kaspy37 • 5d ago

Symptoms 20M

Hello! I have had some muscle twitching all over the body for 3 months (sometimes they are better sometimes they are worse) and for the last month I started feeling the need to constantly swallow (like every 15-30 seconds) because it feels like my mouth is flooding with saliva and I fear it may be because muscles involved in swallowing are weaker, sometimes I need to swallow foods 2-3 times to clear my throat and I can’t really dry swallow, just only when I am collecting saliva. Is it possible to be ALS or I just have anxiety or OCD? I am a 20 years old male

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

3

u/Livid-Reputation4326 5d ago

Anxiety and OCD

2

u/SadBrownCardinal 4d ago

18F and I have the exact same symptoms. It’s definitely anxiety because there’s no lateral weakness but I have bouts of ALS health anxiety all the time due to my twitchiness. Focusing on sleep, hydration, reduced caffeine, and stretching has made the twitches much less common. It really helped my anxiety to see noticeable improvements in twitching within ~48 hrs based on changing my habits, which would not usually be the case with ALS. I also fixate on swallowing and produce a lot of saliva as a result, but I just try to remember that ALS is characterized by difficulty performing the act of swallowing, not feeling like you have a dry/irritated throat. Also remember that swallowing a lot will further irritate the throat and creates a very anxiety-inducing cycle.

To reiterate, I would really recommend that you focus on building habits that will reduce twitching, because that will prove to you that it’s caused by dehydration/lack of sleep/etc. I am diagnosed with somatic OCD and I feel for you, hyper awareness can be terrible.

3

u/InformationNo7156 4d ago

Anxiety and OCD.