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Help! Could this be ALS?????
by cowboy42, May 14, 2008 07:43AM
am a 42 year old male. About a year ago I had a bad case of gout in my right knee. I spent 3 days in the hospital. I have been taking Alpurenol (sp) for about a year. About 2 months after the gout incident, I noticed that my right quad muscle had atrophied. The 2 aren't related...just a coincidence. A few weeks later I noticed that I couldn't extend my leg out. No matter how much I tried to concentrate on lifting and extending my leg, it wouldn't move. I went to my internal med doctor who referred me to a Sport medicine dr who thought that it might be my lower back or a pinched nerve. To rule out that it wasn't my actual leg causing the problem, they X-rayed my knee and found that my knee cap looked like a paralyzed person's knee cap. All of the calcium was absorbed by all of the other bones because my knee wasn't being used...since the quad muscle wasn't working. My back had a little bit of deteration but nothing out of the norm. He referred me to a neurologist who did an EMG and they were dumb-founded by the results. I was then referred to another Neurologist who did an EMG, a millogram, a spinal MRI. He was also dumb-founded and referred me to UTSW Medical Center neurology. They referred me to the wrong kind of Neurologist (he handled more sports medicine problems). After another EMG which he tested my left arm, both legs, back and calfs,he said that the readings were definately getting progressively worse and the nerve damage was spreading but from the previous EMG's and that he couldn't give a diagnosis at this time. He asked if I was having twitches and at the time I had only had a couple in a month's period. Within 2 weeks after my appt., my twitches increased daily and now it has been 6 weeks and I have at least 20-30 twitches per day. Started in my right thigh, has moved to my rt calf, left calf, top of shoulder and my left arm. I have an appt with an ALS specialist and am very nervous and concerned. Please let me know if you have had anything similar or can give some advice.
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