Hello everyone, I have been having neurological symptoms for the past eight years -- I am a 45 year old male -- including:

1) Persistent fasciculations in both legs, and when I mean persistent, I mean *all* the time, they don't stop, ever. I get the twitches all over my body, but they tend to be less frequent than in my legs.

2) Muscle weakness. I am reasonably fit, play volleyball fairly competitively (BB level) without any noticeable muscle weakness during games, but just the other day I went for a brisk four mile walk that included one steep hill, and by the end I could not walk on my heels (i.e. as in the standard neurological test) -- the muscles that allow you to walk on your heels had no strength in them at all, and the strength did not return until the following morning.

The same thing can happen with my fingers if I strain them too much. There comes a point where I am unable to resist the slightest pressure against the affected finger. Strength always does eventually return however, usually after a couple of hours.

3) When I would let my young nieces swing on my arms, I would be able pick them up without much problem, but my arms would shake so much that they would notice and comment about it. At the time, they weren't not particularly heavy (only five years old or so), so it did seem very strange that it would happen. They're too old for that now, so it haven't tried it in a while

4) I can make my toes cramp up any time I want.

Since all these neuromuscular symptoms have been happening for at least eight years I should say at this point that I've already been down the self-diagnosed ALS road just about as far as you can go without actually really being diagnosed with it. It took a long time to get there, but I am pretty much 100% certain that I don't have ALS.

But I would really like to know what I do have. The only professional diagnosis I have had is benign fasciculations, which is fine, but does not explain the temporary weakness I experience whenever I put more than a moderate amount of strain on certain muscles. (Really, you should not be able to lose all strength in your front calf muscles from a brisk hour-long walk on neighborhood streets).

Whatever the condition is, it's not really been affecting my health or lifestyle (once I got over my fear of ALS a few years ago, anyway), and it doesn't seem to be getting any worse over the years, but it's very frustrating not being able to put a name to it. None of the neuromuscular conditions listed on the Internet seem to be a good fit for my symptoms, so I was wondering if anyone reading this forum might have a clue I have overlooked.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Mike