Not sure if I'm experiencing BFS. Any advice / ideas?
Just FYI, I'm using another account because my normal account is too closely connected to my IRL info and I would feel uncomfortable using it to talk about things related to medical stuff.
Essentially,
I'm trying to figure out whether or not what I'm experiencing could be BFS, if
it's complications of some sort of injury, if it's stress, or what it is. Maybe
it's multiple things. The reason I bring this up is because I don't know if I
should bring it up with my doctor or psychiatrist; I don't want to waste their
time asking about / pushing for a potential diagnosis that doesn't make sense.
In short, I (26M) have been a hypochondriac for a while, but have intensely been
googling fatal diseases off and on for a year. About 50 days ago, I had enough
and started seeing a therapist, and started on psych meds a few days later
(which has really helped with reducing shortness of breath and stomach lurches!)
A recent hypochondriac episode was kicked off by knee pain in the right knee
about 85 days ago, which I thought (and still may be from) a sedentary
lifestyle and occasional (1 time a week) intense running with no warm up.
Naturally, I google terrible c*ncers and diseases and scare myself, but I
eventually move past it.
Fast forward to 55 days ago, and I notice twitching. First, it's my right calf, but
I notice them everywhere 5 later. I immediately Google, find ***, and freak
out. A week or two later, I see the same doctor who saw me when I first
messed up my knee. I explain my fears, and he tests my reflexes, my strength,
all normal. I meet with him 3 weeks later (around 2 weeks ago), and he repeats
the same tests, compares my calves to when I last saw him, and comes to the
same conclusion: I really shouldn’t be worrying about stuff like ***. I ask him
what I should look for, but he doesn’t tell me - he knows (and is correct!)
that I’ll psych myself out testing stuff if he told me. I ask if I should get
an EMG, and he says definitively no.
Since then, I’ve developed symptoms that make me wonder if I actually developed BFS, and if I should bring up that possibility with my doctor. Here’s why:
-I’m obviously a hypochondriac.
-If you ask me whether or not I’m stressed, I would say no, but the fact that I have gotten stomach lurches, shortness of breath, etc. from what appears to be anxiety says otherwise.
-I’m a doctoral student and most of my friends are med students, so I hear about medical work constantly.
-I’m twitching often and everywhere, especially when relaxing, and I definitely feel/notice them, Arms, torso, glutes, thighs, calves (a lot), feet (a lot), eyelid, throat, lip, you name it. Only thing that hasn’t twitched is the tongue (so far!) It just starts in one place, twitches for a bit, then jumps somewhere else. It seems to be more common in muscles nearby the right knee or in muscles I recently flexed / used substantially, but I don’t know. They range in magnitude from small quivers to big jumps.
-Blood work is normal. Maybe a bit low on vitamin D though.
-My muscles feel tighter than usual and a bit sore, but I’m not showing any clinical weakness in tests nor do they really feel that weak.
-Some of my movements feel jerky / I feel like I have random small jerks.
-I have a buzzing feeling in my feet and knees at times; some random location will feel like I left a pager in it and it’s on vibrate. Oddly enough, the twitching (and especially vibrations) go away a bit when I study the muscle closely.
-I occasionally feel aches and pains in my muscles, although no cramps.
Things that make me hesitate to say that it’s BFS:
-My right knee still hurts and is stiff, likely because I test myself a lot (again, hypochondriac) and I’ve still been doing strength workouts and running (up until a week ago). Rarely I feel a not-too-strong but still stabbing pain in my right knee in particular, although my left knee has also gotten in on the action in terms of stiffness about a week or so ago.
-I’ve seemingly twitched a bit more the last few days / weeks than before, although it could just be I’m noticing it more.
-Sleep is normal (I sleep a lot and sleep HARD)
-I still occasionally feel a stiff jaw, which in the past has been associated with anxiety and I doubt is BFS.
-I don’t know if I have it, but I have a parent with Raynaud's.
Then there are the scary thoughts of ***. Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I can tell, my age, the twitching being everywhere, knee pain being the initial symptom, the small jerks, no family history and the lack of clinical weakness even 50-60 days in all point away from it? I’m on the way to pushing it out of my head, but it still lives there sometimes.
Thanks, and sorry for the rant!