Hi Tony,

Sorry to hear you're so anxious about this. First off, I would say that ALS in someone of your age is highly unlikely. Not to say it's impossible, at least one of our regular members here was dx'd at an earlier age than that.

Have you met anyone who's had ALS? How did you come across it? It's very common for someone to read a list of symptoms, become worried that they have them, and fall into a cycle of distorted thinking about how they're getting a terrible illness.

Unfortunately from the pattern of signs that you've described (i'm not sure I'd say they were symptoms at this stage), it's impossible to say very much. If this were ALS, I'd say keep an eye out for muscle wasting in your hands. This shows up as the bones in your hand becoming more prominent.

Twitching is fairly non-specific and frequently occurs in healthy muscle. It can certainly be caused by anxiety. In ALS there are fasciculations which are different because they look like rippling patterns underneath the skin, and tend to happen in large muscles like legs, forearms, and the chest.

What do you mean by weakness? Do you mean you can no longer lift a heavy saucepan? Does your foot drag along when you walk? If it simply feels like very heavy things are quite hard to lift but you can still do it, that's probably nothing significant.

If you have other symptoms of anxiety or a mood disorder you might want to consider seeking treatment for those, particularly if worrying about ALS is causing you a great deal of distress or the thoughts you get are intrusive.

See your neurologist, let us know how it goes.

All the best

Paul