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I, again, agree with bin. You are suffering from serious anxiety and are experiencing the EXACT same symptoms I’m experiencing right now (though, for a different fear). You're gonna be perfectly fine, but you need to focus on your anxiety and get some help! I’m on medication for my OCD/hypochondria and am going to try to start counseling to help me get better with unhealthy behaviors. You can do this, but you’re gonna have to work on the real problem—anxiety.

I agree with bin. I have had much more serious weight loss issues than you--and I'm only like 110 pounds anyways! And yes, I am a man, lol. Anxiety causes me to lose huge amounts of weight and there is pretty much nothing I can do about it except work on the anxiety, and work hard to stop myself from focusing on whatever is worrying me. In your case: your weight. I know for me that constant re-assurance helps temporarily, but you should start working on your anxiety! You know deep down that there is absolutely no reason to be so anxious, but you're so on edge that the logical part of your brain isn't able to take over. You're not alone in this battle! You're in a community full of people who know what you're going through and are here to support you through it and give you advice and do everything else they can do! Hugs from here, and I hope and pray that you can start working on your anxiety :)!

Thank you, jonathan! I've had counseling before, but I was very off and on with it. I will be sticking with it this time, even when things get better, because I know they will get worse at some point. I'm also going to try to get some serious help for my OCD which is what I believe causes my health anxiety. I get these obsessive, but most of the time ridiculous thoughts that have no logical grounding. Then one thing happens, and I have a slip... I go to Google. Of course, you're bound to find something for your fears to cling onto, and with these constantly intrusive thoughts, you're bound to have a fear just strong enough or just grounded enough to cause you immense and overbearing amounts of pain and suffering--pretty much always excessive, unnecessary worry. In my time, so far the record is pretty one-sided. Not one thing I've ever worried about has been as bad as my worry made it seem to be. Now I'm dealing with very bad indigestion, nausea, and upset stomach (all of which is commonplace when I get anxious), and it just wants to make me more anxious. Anyways, I appreciate your feedback and your reply. I hope to see more as I could use all the help I can get! I also hope all is well with you and those reading this!

I would also be incredibly appreciative of any advice that ANY of you could muster up to help me in managing and quelling these unrealistic and useless fears. I thank anyone and everyone who can help!

So many of you may know my username as I was on the forum a few months back--about a severe bout of anxiety over the thought of ALS. Of course, I turned out to not have the terrible disease. This is pretty much the outcome of every single one of my health fears. For the past few months, I have been doing very well for myself, and have been able to manage my anxiety incredibly well. Not only that, I haven't had a moment of panic since 2-3 months ago!... or so it was. I recently have had a new health fear pop up, which I am not even going to discuss on this forum as I know that any reassurance may help temporarily, but we all know that it is not going to make any major impact on me or my mental health. Long story short, I am having a severe relapse--one that is hurting my actual physical health (just because I am unable to eat due to my anxiety), and my relationships with others. I thought I had gotten better at handling this, but obviously I was wrong. I am going to the doctor Tuesday to talk with him about this, possibly upping my dose of sertraline/Zoloft (from 50mg to either 75mg or 100mg), and to get an official referral to a counselor, as I realize that medicine is not the answer to all of my problems. I just want everyone to know that it is okay to have relapses, it is okay to have these terrible fears that, in my experience and that of many others I've seen on multiple forums, are almost always wrong. I also want everyone to know that it is okay to reach out for help, and to get yourself to the root of the problem--i.e. NOT THE DISEASE YOU FEAR! The disease you worry the least about: hypochondria. And lastly, I just want everyone to know that I could use as much support as possible right now as I am trying to get my life together and figure out a plan of action for dealing with my health anxiety. I wish you all the best, and I hope this post has maybe helped some others see their situation and realize they're truly not alone, and they're even more truly not focusing on the real problem. Cheers!

ALS is never a sensory disease--ever. Sensory issues are one of the few things that ALS never, EVER occurs alongside.

Wow, I took a break from here as my anxiety had began to recede, and so I wanted to stay away from exposure and such for a while, but while I was gone, there have been a lot of ALS anxieties! This is slowly but surely becoming one of the biggest fears for people with health anxiety. Anyways, my anxiety began in mid-November of 2018. I had two or three twitches in my neck which made me Google. First thing to pop up: ALS. Eventually, after plenty of online reading and research, I manifested the following symptoms: 1.) Twitching 2.) Perceived Weakness 3.) Shortness of Breath 4.) Balance issues 5.) Brain Fog (which I thought was due to dementia which can occasionally coincide with ALS) 6.) Myoclonic Jerks (very severe jerks) 7.) Burning in muscles. 8.) Perceived slurred speech. 9.) Perceived swallowing issues. 10.) Globus sensation 11.) Other more minor symptoms. Finally, after a 3 month journey of attempted recovery, I began to get back to my old self--until last week. I was drinking some water and choked on it. It freaked me out, but I quickly stopped worrying and didn't think about it, until I noticed a weird feeling in my nose (that still comes and goes). I have been having what feels like nasal regurgitation, but it happens whether or not I eat or drink something. I have also started having a globus sensation again. I can not get the "what-ifs" out of my head and I am falling back down to where I was at the start of all of this many months ago. Anyways, I would appreciate some support and possibly comments on what this nasal regurgitation feeling could be from. It's almost exactly like what you feel when you inhale water, but it doesn't burn, nor does it only happen when I am eating or drinking. It is occurring as I am typing this. I have had slight sinus issues lately, but I have never had sinus issues feel like this--not to mention they are VERY slight sinus issues. Sorry for the rant... I didn't really have a purpose for writing this other than to get it off my chest and possibly get some support. Thank you for reading.

I'm only 18 and had a massive ALS scare recently that I've just finally been recovering from in the past week or two. This has been my first (and hopefully last) bout of anxiety--EVER--so I totally understand your predicament. It's like this health anxiety just popped up out of nowhere! I hope you can get some peace of mind and start doing better soon!

You’re not going to just wake up and see your symptoms be gone. Did you just wake up one morning and have a paycheck? No—you had to get up and work for it. You have to get up and work on your anxiety for it to get better. And remenber that time when you called in 3 straight days? Unless you’re on salary, you got a smaller paycheck. Anxiety doesn’t run on salary. It runs hour by hour, minute by minute, and second by second—you have to be consistent and constantly work at it or it isn’t going to get better. I have full faith that you’re going to get better with your anxiety, but I’m hoping you can stop wondering and asking those “what if’s” and just move on with your life and focus on your anxiety and wonder how to get your anxiety down. Prayers coming from all around, brother. 🙏🏼

Well the good news is that you’ve been twitching for 4 years. I’ve never read a story of an ALS patient twitching without other symptoms popping up for longer than a month, and trust me when I say that I have read enough stories on the ALS website that I could just about tell you every type of onset of symptoms you wanted to know about.

Sounds like brain fog and perceived weakness due to hyper awareness. I’ve had that non stop for the past month or so. 100% anxiety—at least that’s exactly what happens to me 🙂

Has anyone else had acid reflux without heartburn? All the time I get this weird feeling like something is coming up into my throat/upper chest that gets worse when I lie down. I’ve also been burping a lot whenever this happens. This morning (after sleeping propped up) I woke up nauseated. Never had this before and I am slightly freaked.

I have been started on sertraline 50mg for the past month or so. It's helped, but not fixed the issue. I also began counseling again with my school's mental health counselor and it has sort of helped, but not significantly. Every time I get over one thing and become fine again, I have another set back and have to fight my way through it. Thanks for the nice reply, Bob

Before I begin speaking any, I guess I should give a little background on who I am and what I have been going through. My name is Daniel Hall and I am 18 years old. I'm currently a student at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee; I am studying conservation biology as I have always had a love for nature. I have always been a hypochondriac. I can remember multiple times throughout my very young life (6-15 years old) where I was having episodes of what I now know to be anxiety. These episodes were mostly due to the usual--cancer worries, tumor worries, etc. In my junior year of high school--to my great dismay--I was in A.P. Biology class and we watched a documentary on Steve Gleason and his journey with ALS. Ever since, it has been my biggest fear; however, it was never affecting my life in any way... until about 2 months, 1 week, and 3 days ago. I began having a twitch in my neck. I honestly don't believe it twitched more than two or three times and then stopped. Anyways, ALS had popped up in my mind a few days prior as I had read about someone famous being diagnosed with it (I believe), so, I immediately Googled "muscle twitching" and found that one of the first things to pop up was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--ALS, or as it's better known, Lou Gehrig's disease. As many of you can imagine, an immediate panic went through my body and I freaked out internally, but managed to keep my cool as I knew it was super rare and that I most likely didn't have ALS. That didn't matter, though, as within hours I was twitching body-wide, head-to-toe, non-stop. 24/7 fasciculations. Luckily, my school was just about to begin Thanksgiving break and I was able to have a week to research (wish I didn't), mope (still do), and manage to get over my first bout of anxiety. I found that fasciculations are rarely the presenting symptom of ALS, and that body-wide fasciculations are even more rare as a presenting symptom. In fact--I've never read a story of body-wide twitching being the presenting symptom of ALS ever. Queue the happy, fun, and enjoyable Daniel. Back in business! That didn't last long, however, as I began to notice a tingle in my left arm which I knew had nothing to do with ALS. I began wondering if this is maybe MS or neuropathy or whatever other inconvenient but non-life threatening disease I could imagine. Then I began to notice an odd weakness in that arm. It only felt weak; I could still perform any action that I could before the feeling of weakness, but it definitely felt weak. Queue the anxiety! Within a weeks time this went away. I'm going to make the rest of this as short and undetailed as possible as this is beginning to really drag itself out. After the perceived arm weakness came perceived swallowing issues. I was having trouble swallowing, I had choked on my water maybe two or three times, and I was absolutely freaking out. The next symptom was nasal speech that was due to a very small sinus infection that I began dealing with. The perceived swallowing issues went away immediately. Then came perceived slurred speech. My tongue felt huge and was "dragging" in my mouth. It felt heavy. The perceived nasal speech went away as soon as my sinus infection went away. Then I finally accepted that I wasn't slurring and this was all in my head. It worked! I stopped worrying and had no more anxiety--or so I thought--and was out of the rabbit hole. I wasn't slurring, and life was ready to be lived from Mr. Daniel Hall! Until I began working out and noticing that my left arm was sore longer than my right :). I strained it. Very easy to do. I used to work out a lot, but quit after the beginning of my health anxiety over ALS. When I went back to working out, I went full force and full effort. I was sore for nearly a week! Anyways, this soreness led to more perceived weakness and tightness that has now went away as my focus has shifted to a new symptom--speech changes. Last night, my girlfriend and I were laying on her couch watching a movie, and I said something to her. Her reply was "your voice sounds different." I don't believe the panic was as bad as it has been before, but it was awful. She immediately knew what she had done, and she apologized and tried to calm me and reassure me. I was beyond the realm of peace from reassurance. I panicked and was anxious all last night and all today. I have been non-stop honed in and focused on my voice and the way it sounds. The point of all of this is to show the effect that anxiety can have on our lives. I joined this forum only days ago and already have seen countless threads of people worrying about ALS. I am 18, have no family history of ALS (or any neurological diseases in fact), with a family history of severe anxiety. Everyone on my father's side relies on anxiety medicine. I have just started anxiety medication not too long ago, but it is not helping as much as I'd like it to as I am letting this fear take control of my mind. The fear is irrational and is of something that I don't have and couldn't control if I did have it. It's funny, too; I can go on someone else's thread and reassure them and give them all the 1,000+ reasons why they don't have ALS, yet I seem to make the faintest connections from dots of information that aren't even real--dots of information that are just made up in my world of fear. I hope some of those who are having problems with ALS fears, or health anxiety in general, can read this and take a step back and look at their situation from a more mature and less anxiety-ridden view. I also hope that I can get some support from those of you who have been through these fears and understand the struggle. Anxiety is a real illness that can sometimes take a greater toll on an individual and those around them than a very genuine and very serious illness, but unlike those illnesses, anxiety can be conquered if it is recognized, understood, and an attempt is made to get rid of it, and support can make all the difference in the world when trying to accomplish those three things. P.S. Sorry for rambling on. My mind has been in a fog due to all of my anxiety, and thus my writing is very random and uncoordinated.

I lost over 10 lbs throughout this whole stretch of anxiety. Still trying to get back up to my normal weight. I was 5’5” and 115 before all of this and now I’m down to 105-107. At one point I got down to like 98 or 99 lbs.