MS or ALS Symptoms? Or Paranoia?

[jake123]

Hello, I am a 38 year old male living in the southeastern US.  I am in perfect health and shape, working out regularly.  Aside from a diagnosis of hyperthyroidism (2009) an elevated prolactin level (which I am regulating with methimazole and Cabergoline)
I am fine.

For the couple years or so, I have been feeling fatigued on and off with difficulty in sleeping on occasion. During these periods I will feel moody and sometimes moderate dizziness.  I have been going through this again the past couple weaks, but now have been experiencing weakness in my left arm or shoulder.  I have noticed this during my push ups.  I have to admit I have not been doing them as regularly, so it may just be a drop off in muscle or production, but I just feel a little weaker  in the right arm.  My balance at times feels a little questionable too.  I play alot of sports and was noticing 2 weeks ago that I was falling alot during our football games.  

So it brings me to searching the web and making me somewhat paranoid (in which I am).  I am looking at symptoms of MS and ALS and worry if I am showing signs of either one.  Any thoughts or recommendations? Thank you.

[LisaJF]

Hello there and welcome to the forums!

I agree with JJ and you need to make an appointment with your doctor.  It is imperative that you see him/her first and let them do some laboratory testing and perhaps diagnostic testing (MRI, EMG, etc) before you search the internet and scare yourself to pieces.  It's easy to do since you have access.

For all you know you could have mono and for all I know it could be something else.

However, you have noticed:  

Fatigue
Insomnia
Weakness
Dizziness
Balance issues

Tell your doctor these things and let him/her run the tests first before jumping to conclusions as of yet.

Again, welcome to the forums and let us know how you're doing!

Lisa

[supermum_ms]

Hi and welcome to our little MS community, to be honest with you it doesn't sound like MS or ALS to me, cant really pin anything specific to mention as to why. Maybe its simply that your sx's are not really similar enough to either condition, and thats why.

I would recommend you see your dr for a check up, its possible that there is a viral infection happening or your hyperthyroidism meds just need a little tweeking. The other thought i had was related to sleep, if for example you have sleep apnea, that could be causing the fatigue, moodiness, paranoia, weakness etc so that might be worth getting checked out too.

Hmmmm as for being "somewhat paranoid" that alone can cause you to hyperfocus on your health, making you read more into things than you would ordinarily do. So if you are at all concerned that your mental health maybe becoming problematic, please speak to your dr about this too!

Good luck.........JJ