To all new twitchers...
The fact that you found this sub means most probably you have unexplained muscle twitching.
Strange...bothering... but everyone has that from time to time, right? Right!
But then it became more frequent and you started googling... pretty quick you learned a new word: Fasciculations... and you learned something else... all the top results said you most likely have ALS and will die in a horrible way.
First things first: You don’t have ALS
Why? Lets get down to it:
ALS does not start with twitching, this is a mid- to late-stage symptom. ALS is not a disease of twitching but a disease of weakness. By the time you started twitching you’d have some serious other issues that would have driven you to see a doctor. And you wouldn’t spend your time on Reddit, you’d have bigger fish to fry.
ALS is a rare disease... not super-rare but still rare... your chance to die of ALS is 1 in 350 over your lifetime. The chance to die in a car accident is around 1 in 70... how many people do you know who have died in a car accident? That’s already a rare cause of death.
Your age. You’re on Reddit so chances are you’re pretty young. ALS before the age of 40 is very rare and usually genetic. No one else in your family had young-onset-ALS? You’re good!
You know what’s not rare? Stress, Anxiety, Lack of vitamins, Electrolyte imbalances, Viral infections, Caffeine, Cocaine, Antidepressants, Hyperthyroidism! They all can cause twitching!
You know what’s also not rare? A condition called Benign Fasciculation Syndrome! People twitch for no f***in reason at all, and it never progresses into something bad. Usually accompanied by stiffness, muscle pain, tremors, buzzing, vibrations... still means nothing in the absence of clinical weakness. And clinical weakness means a doctor has determined it. Clinical weakness means you cannot use that limb, not it feels like you can’t. Feel your legs are weak but you could run if a bear is after your ass? Not clinical weakness!
Look up Benign Fasciculation Syndrome on Wikipedia for starters: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_fasciculation_syndrome
And BFS is common... we have 5000 people on Facebook and an old website which went defunct had over 10000 members. And you know how many who started with twitching as their only symptom had ALS? Zero! Want scientific evidence for that? Look here: Incidence of Motor Neuron Disease Presenting with Isolated Fasciculations
See also: When to see a doctor...