extremely worried about my aunt

[biancafidalgo]

Hey, everyone! as most people who post about symptoms i’ve been extremely anxious for my aunt, so im gonna try to summarize what we’ve been dealing with so i can get some help (thank you so much in advance).

About 10 months ago, my aunt fell down next to me while we were walking on the street. i only noticed when she was on her knees but she said she tripped and fell.

After that, her walking became a bit weird, like she couldn’t really lift her left leg properly. she had another incident in her bathroom after only a few weeks, where she tripped, again, fell and hurt her back. she got even worse after that, she couldnt walk long distances without feeling the need to sit down. then after a short period of time she fell again, tripped in our front yard, hurting even more the bad foot and the good one a bit as well.

After the third fall she couldn't walk properly even inside our house so we took her to a doctor. the doctors then found out she had broken her foot, which made sense at the time. the problem was that even after her foot was healed from being broken, she had what people call a “foot drop”. she couldn't move her fingers and do the “heel walk”. she did physiotherapy for a while and whilst her walking became better (she could lift her legs more) she still had a foot drop. she did a EMG and found out she had some issues with a nerve on her left leg.

Some doctors already mentioned her nerve before so it wasn’t something new, but one of the possibilities that the neuro mentioned was ALS (along with some others like neuropathy and a hernia on her back, i know there’s a chance it couldn’t not be it at all but my anxiety is screaming at me).

Also she doesn’t feel that much pain and it worries me. If someone touches the place where the nerve is damaged she feels a strong wave of pain from her back to her toes, or if she walks for a while her knees will hurt. she’s using an orthosis for her foot drop, and her fingers hurt a little, but other than that no worrying pain.

For the past few days she started to move her fingers again, which would be good news if i didn’t feel like her knees are getting weaker. She’s going to a different physio therapist now, and after the sessions she seems weaker. it seems like it’s harder for her to walk and she can’t stand still for too long like she used to. i’m scared it could be a progression of some sort.

She doesn’t have any other symptoms on other parts of her body, doesn’t get many twitches or cramps at all. Her reflexes are normal. Her other foot is a bit stiff but she doesn’t have any weakness on her right leg/foot. Again, thank you so much for your time.

 

[Nikki J]

You said she couldn’t move fingers but I think that you a translation issue and you meant toes ( her symptoms are confined to her foot?)

If you have a copy of the emg you can post it after removing all identification. If she has a nerve problem as you say that is something that looks totally different than a motor neuron problem like ALS on testing.

It is certainly possible and common for a nerve problem to cause foot drop. Without seeing her and her testingI don’t think we can say anything else

 

[lgelb]

Damage to the nerves that control foot movement does not require pain. And a herniated disk could certainly affect walking. By all means, post the EMG if you like.

 

[biancafidalgo]

hey guys, thank you for the replies! i just came back to update you. i don’t have the full report to post but the only abnormalities were fibrillations on her left fibular nerve, and no acute denervation on her right side or other nerves on her left side (both feet were tested). also sorry for the confusion, i did mean toes but in my language we use the same word for fingers and toes!

after reading here a lot i found out her abnormalities were too localized to be ALS, and she’s been getting better as well (we bought a new bed! if someone going through something similar reads this, your sleeping positions could change so much, so please make sure you’re sleeping in a comfortable position) + she’s been doing light exercises to strengthen her muscles.

also, she gets nerve pain when she’s in certain positions like bending her leg to the right for example, which further confirms it’s probably a pinched nerve. her doctor doesn’t seem too worried, so we’ll continue with the treatment she’s been doing so far.

her twitches pretty much stopped now, i can’t be sure if it was the exercises or the new bed, probably both!! i just wanted to post here to tranquilize people with similar symptoms. just know that even though you might have a clinical weakness + twitches + abnormal EMG, there’s still a chance its not ALS! i know members say that all the time, but it can be nice to hear it from someone else who was struggling with anxiety.

thank you so much for the members who spend their time tranquillizing so many anxious people. i know ALS is a very rare disease but it can be so anxiety inducing for some reason. i wish you guys a very slow progression and a lot of quality of life.

 

[lgelb]

Thank you for the update; I'm glad to hear things are better. Proper positioning in bed can have a great influence on health, and supervised exercise can certainly help with nerve pain.