Weak arm! Anyone else ever have this....

[Nicole80]

My right arm (dominant arm) feels extremely weak lately. It even takes effort to text! It runs from my hand up my forearm even to my shoulder. Has anyone ever had this happen? I've felt it for almost a week.

[joshf123]

I've been having weakness in my legs for about a month now. I feel like they're going to give out on me after a a short walk (less than a half mile or just doing things around the house) I've also had some intermittent weakness in my right arm as well. Sometimes there's a hot feeling in my shoulder and tricep like I've been working out and it feels kind of awkward to text or type. That seems to have gone away but my weak legs remain. Are you having any other symptoms along with the weakness? Is it weak all the time or off and on?

[Nicole80]

Hi Josh, thanks for your reply. My symptoms actually began in December and after googling symptoms became out of control around January. I have one or many symptoms every single day since January. I've had weak legs, big time pain in my ankles, tons and I mean tons of muscle twitching, floaters in my eyesight, vibrating sensations in legs, my knee has felt like its locked in place when I'm laying in bed and the worst has been numbness and pins/needles in my fingertips so badly that it wakes me up. This arm weakness is my newest symptom. It's been very hard to believe its just anxiety.  I'm convinced it must be something like fibromyalgia, at least I hope it's something non-progressive. I've worried endlessly for three months about ms and other neuro diseases. Googling even has me completely convinced one ankle has a dent and is smaller than the other. I know it's crazy but I can see it, makes me scared something is going on with the muscle in that leg.

I've had two MRI's, both completely clear. Had an emg and neuro found unspecific nerve damage in both ankles, but he didn't seem too concerned. Scares me bad though!

[joshf123]

I would trust the doctor and stop googling your symptoms. I sent myself into a bad spiral of depression and doom because I was absolutely convinced I had a degenerative neurological disease from hours upon hours of googling. I still don't know what's going on but my symptoms have not improved. I get lots of twitching all over my body and buzzing in my thighs. I can walk normally but only for short distances. It's hard to get on with my daily life when I can't do certain things because I feel like my legs are going to give out, but that's all I can do for now. It has helped me a lot to just spend time with a reassuring family. I also started on 20mg prozac. It has helped ease the compulsive thinking.

I don't think it's all anxiety related, clearly since your EMG showed some unspecific nerve damage, but how badly we build it up in our minds tends to be worse than the actual problem. If the doctor seemed unconcerned, I would leave it at that. You're going to drive yourself crazy chasing after an answer that you can't find right now.

Force yourself to trust the doctors and spend as much time around family and friends who can offer you some assurance. It's hard to just let it go but there's some things we can't get an overnight solution to.

I'm returning to the GP tomorrow for a follow up on wbc and I'll hopefully get a referral to a neuro for these weak legs!

Use what you have while you have it. We don't live forever and there's no sense wasting time worrying about things that are out of our control.

[Nicole80]

Josh, please let us know what your GP says.

[Lalaland]

Hey Nicole

I could have written your post myself. We have exactly the same symptoms, I've even had my arm feel week for around a week too although for some weird reason. Only my right bicep is feeling weak. The shoulder and my forearm are actually doing ok. Weird right? :p

I'm assuming nasty neurological diseases don't just pop up out of the blue like this though. And for two people to have the same symptoms at exactly the same time tells me what were feeling is probably fairly common.

That's my guess anyway...

Did the doctors tell you if this is a symptom of  anxiety?

[Nicole80]

Hello, it's a weird symptom. My whole body feels pretty worn out and weak but more so on the right side. Right arm and right leg. No, doc never called it anxiety. He just gave me an MRI said it was clear and told me he wasn't really sure what was causing all my symptoms. It's frustrating to be only 28 and feel so exhausted everyday. It's depressing:(

[mollyfin]

I've had one-sided weakness very often.  Doctors are not concerned in my case.  If it's just the arm and not your whole side maybe it's a pinched nerve somewhere, or it could well be anxiety.  If your MRI was clear it's probably not a brain thing, just an arm or anxiety thing.