Is this normal when muscles twitches all over my body?

Fasciculations/muscle twitches, medical opinion please?

• Hello, my name is Alex, 17 years old. For the past 2 weeks i've been annoyed and freaked out by muscle twitches all around my body. My grandfather had ALS and died in 2003 and I am EXTREMELY scared that i could have it too. Since my family does now know anyone else that had this condition in our bloodline, i think he didn't suffer from familial ALS. my twitches are basically everywhere. biceps, LEFT eyelid (only left), stomach, arches of feet, back , never on the fingers,but MOSTLY are in my legs, knee area, calves, femur area ,and those are the most annoying because they are very persistent, and almost constant. i get them more at night only when muscles are relaxed. i do not have muscle cramps nor experience any kind of pain. but the fear of having ALS terrifies me. After what i've seen my garndfather become from the man he was.. id also like to ask. if grandpa had non familial ALS, is there a chance that i could get it? or does that only happen in familial type? i've also read that calcium and magnesium deficiency can cause fasciculations , so ive taken some calcium-magnesium pills for about 4 days now, and still, nothing has changed. i also experience shakiness in my hands, for example when i drink water from a cup , i sometimes shake it when i put it down , dunno, maybe its because i crack my knuckles A LOT. as for WEAKNESS and loss of strength, no change i believe. i do not feel weak , i can do about 40 push ups and have no balance problems. but still, the persistent twitches have been annoying me for only 2 weeks or so. i've given you as many details as i could think of and hope you can help me in describing more about ALS , and what i can do to treat my fasciculations. thank you

• Answer:

  First all the stress you're doing isn't helping the twitching. This alone is bad for your entire health and immune system. Since you don't mention anything about slurred speech at all, I think you might just have some other problem here. Why not get a DNA test done? Even if it's non-familial the marker for it will show. Then whatever the results you'll know whether you have this or something else. This will also take a few weeks to come back too, but you need to stop all this stress. The annual flu season is coming and everyone needs all the strength there immune system has without being weakened by stress too. For more info on ALS go to webmd.com. I found the link about Angela Lansbury very interesting. She's the new spokesperson for it. I do hope you're not too young to know who she is. If so please ask your mom or a close relative about her hit series she had. The name was Murder, she wrote! It was a great mystery weekly show on for awhile. There are also other links there you can use. Good luck and God Bless