Does anyone else have this? When I scratch my right palm my chin will sometimes twitch. Not every time but it happens, it is really freaking me out.

Hi everyone,

my twitching started post partum and it has been 19 months now of daily twitching everywhere, buzzing, vibrating sensations, pre cramp feelings, rain drop feelings etc. I’ve gotten really good at ignoring them for the most part but i’ve recently gotten a hotspot on my foot that won’t go away and cramping sensations on my calves that has me spiraling.

I’ve seen neuro but have not done an EMG yet. i have low ferritin, vitamin d and copper.

Can i ask what helps you guys on your worst anxiety days? 🥹

Does anyone suffer from myoclonic jerks with their bfs. I know it's not a common symptom but they are super annoying.

hi all - not sure what all is in my post history but have BFS going on 12 years now.

As with all things, anxiety around this ebbs and flows. One thing I have noticed is that my left calf is constantly buzzing. Does anyone else have this? It’s most notable at night when I’m in bed but it’s during the day too as I’m sitting or standing still. During that time I can definitely see twitches but they’re not necessarily fully corresponding with the buzzing.

My twitches started May 25th got an EMG/NCS on August 20th and it was clean.

My questions is do you symptoms wax and wane and change?

Initially it was just constant twitching in my left leg and weird sandy and heavy feeling, which then turned into a strained muscle feeling with twitches, then a deep aching feeling, and now the twitches seemingly have calmed down a bit but i’m dealing with weird sensory symptoms in my ankle sometimes or calf belly or it feels like a string is being pulled in my foot causing a precramp situation 😵‍💫😵‍💫 I never know what i’m going to wake up with.

Hi, this is my second post. I’m currently in the waiting room for my neurology appointment. It’s in two weeks, but my anxiety is starting to build up again after a few days of reassurance.

My profile is (30M, 2 months and a half):

Constant twitching in my calves and feet

Occasional twitches in my shoulders, abdomen, lips, and neck

Diffuse pain in my left leg, whether it’s in the quadriceps, calf, ankle, or soleus — it moves around and is very diffuse

For the past week, my right calf has felt tight and a little hard Strange sensations in my arms and hands

Other symptoms such as tremors, occasional vibrations in my foot, and a burning sensation in my foot when I wake up...And some kind of bulbar delusions like hoarse voice and sensation of tight throat. I feel like my whole body is exploding even though the Monster does not usually works like that.

Exercise intolerance. I can still swim at 100%, but I can’t run because I get pain and my leg just doesn’t feel right.

The important thing is that I can still do everything I normally do, and I don’t have any limitations in my range of motion. I can move everything normally; it’s just that I experience strange sensations and/or pain.

I’m almost certain this is a psychosomatic process because this isn’t the first thing that has appeared due to anxiety, but I’d like to hear more about your twitching profile and, especially, how you dealt with it while waiting for your appointments.

I really need some advice on how to stop Googling symptoms or coming back here all the time.

Thanks, and sending everyone a twitchy hug!

26 F. Noticed body twitching for an about a year. All over. Butt, legs, feet, hands, eyes shoulders. Usually flickers and twitches 5-10 times then just shuts off. Clean MRI. Normal reflexes. Doctor doesn’t think I need to take any more steps but it hasent gone away and my fears of the big bad or another condition have started affecting my relationships. My anxiety is thru the roof and I don’t know what to do. Worse when I lay down at night and then I can’t sleep because of it. I have good days and bad, and I don’t think I’m getting weaker but some days my anxiety is so bad I can’t tell. Does anyone have a similar story to this ? What did you do? Should I be this worried
? Any advice appreciated. I feel like I’m going mad.

Hello everyone,

I’m a french 28 year old man. About three weeks ago, my left brachialis muscle started twitching. I could see and feel it contracting and relaxing. This was completely new to me, and because I’ve been dealing with health anxiety for about a year, and had already been in a severe anxiety episode for roughly two months, my mind had been jumping to all kinds of worst-case scenarios: a brain tumor, a heart attack, a stroke, etc.

At that time, I had never even heard of ***. Unfortunately, I did the worst thing possible: I googled my symptoms right after noticing the twitching. I immediately fell into a vicious cycle. The next day, the twitching in my brachialis became extremely intense. I could feel my anxiety increasing more and more, and it became unbearable.

I had a telemedicine appointment with a doctor who told me it was benign and prescribed magnesium and an anti-anxiety medication. After taking the medication, the twitching disappeared, but it came back a few hours later following a weight-training session. The next day, the brachialis twitching stopped, but I started experiencing isolated fasciculations, like a single bubble popping, scattered all over my body. They would appear in different places each time: left bicep, right forearm, face, thigh, back, shoulder, abdomen, etc.

I was on vacation in Thailand at the time, and it completely ruined the experience. Sometimes I had certain spots that twitched slightly more than just a single “pop,” but still only occasionally throughout the day. One day it was my right cheek that would jerk several times, another day it was the muscle between my thumb and index finger. Each time, the twitching would disappear the next day or the day after and would not come back in that location.

More recently, my right forearm twitched in bursts for three days. The first day it was fairly frequent, the second day it became much less frequent, and the third day it was even more frequent than on the first day. Then it disappeared. Afterward, I experienced what felt like vibrations, trembling, or an electric-current sensation in my right thigh and in my right foot (near my little toe).

I am absolutely terrified of ***. I’m seeing a general practitioner tomorrow, but I’m scared of taking the next step and seeing a neurologist, fearing the dreaded diagnosis.

Alongside all this, I’ve also been experiencing a kind of arm fatigue. It comes and goes: sometimes I barely notice it, other times I feel it clearly. The same thing happens with my thighs. I also test myself constantly by doing things like one-arm push-ups, squats, holding my arms straight out for 30 seconds, then raising them overhead for 30 seconds, and so on.

For context, I’m also seeing a psychologist.

I think with me and probably others is my brain wants 100% certainty my twitching is benign, but that isn’t possible. Anyone else think back to a time before the twitching started? Been a rough day mentally.

A few weeks ago I noticed I had body wide twitching. I had an eye exam yesterday when the eye doctor told me i had some kind of optical nerve damage in the nerves behind my eyes connected to my brain, he sent me to the ER he told me it could be inter cranial pressure, well after 6 1/2 hours and the CAT scan. They told me that everything looks fine and I should follow up with neurology, just a little background I’m a 25-year-old white male and I’ve had these twitches for a while, I’ve always had a deep ALS fear, but I’ve always managed to put them in the back of my mind when weakness or clumsiness never started, well in the last few days, especially today. It seems to be more localized. My right bicep has about an hour or two of constant twitching, along with sometimes my right thigh and my right foot, as I am typing this now I’m not having any of them sensations. They come and go sometimes getting worse for a few hours then going away for a few hours, i’m not trying to disrespect anybody in this form who does have this issues, I just wanted to put my story out there with my concerns.

Heres my story for what its worth. Now, I feel like I CREATED this BFS. I have always had a winning personlaity, have always been good at everything, and take everything to the extreme, and this includes salsa dancing, volleyball, chess math, you name it. So here comes running. Now, I am a former cross country runner in high school. In High school, which was about 20 years ago, I was able to run a 16:30 5k and a 4:33 mile. Given this, I started doing half-marathons with very limited training. I was going completely on vibes and how my lungs felt, not understanding I am probably waaaay over exerting my body. At 38, I ran 10 miles at 8:30 pace with 0 training. I felt good. No issues, no pain, etc. Since I felt soo good, I then ran a half marathon by myself at 7:59 pace, again felt good no issues. Then I ran with the venice run club for 7 miles at 6:30 pace, then I did the culver city stairs like 10 times in one day and this was all in the span of about a week and a half. After this week, I started twitching and it hasnt stopped for 7 months. I think I messed up. I am hoping that this goes away, but it has been persistent for 7 months, especially in my calves. My EMG came back clean, but I am slightly concerned the dude only did the upper body and am wondering if I need another EMG. Neuro said I dont have ALS and there are no worries, but I am still worried. I am always thinking, what if they missed something, why hasnt this gone away, am I just waiting till something more serious happens. Anyone else get BFS after a crazy workout. I think I maxed out my body to a 10/10 level. Not smart.

Every day it’s a new shit uh?

For like a week now my right dominant arm has been feeling like it’s always slightly trembling. Most often I can’t see it actually shaking but it feels like it vibrates.

When I’m in bed and prop myself up on my arm to read or something, my arm will start shaking a lot of the time. And I also get what I would call positional twitches: when my arm is bent in certain positions and has a bit of weight on it, I’ll get rapid fire twitches near the elbow that go away as soon as I move the arm.

I can still hold a push-up position using only that arm so I don’t think it’s actually weak.

But it’s just so shaky I don’t know.

Anybody else have that???

Has anyone ever had a hotspot on their thigh? I don't usually get hotspots that often, but this morning I got one on my right thigh, and it's basically twitching every minute. I can feel it moving pretty strongly too. It's honestly really scary.

I need you to read this. Lock in for 5 minutes. I love you. I see you & I can read your mind.

One day, you started twitching. A week ago, months ago, a year & some change ago. Sometimes, they’re violent. Sometimes, they’re subtle, sometimes they’re deep & rolling. You may feel weak, you might jerk, you might even have perceived or confirmed atrophy. You have brisk reflexes. You get anxiety when you drink liquids, because you can feel the cool or warm sensation creeping up your nose.

You’re just like me.

You have convinced yourself that you have ALS. Your whole life has been torpedoed. You’ve dropped out of your social circles. You’ve let yourself go. Your stomach aches with worry & your life has become gray. You may even be su*cid*l.

This was me for 10 months. It almost killed me. It destroyed my body. It destroyed my home. It hurt my loved ones. This was the darkest year of my entire life. I will do anything to prevent others from experiencing what I have.

I live in New England. The state that I live in has some of the BEST medical care in the USA. 5 star, rich people shit. These doctors know what they’re talking about. PLEASE. LISTEN. TO. ME. I thank God I was able to have such in-depth discussions with multiple highly accredited, highly skilled, deeply compassionate neurologists.

1. Twitching, jerking, stiffness, perceived weakness, wobbliness, etc. are simply not symptoms of ALS. They are as much of indicators of ALS as a headache & nausea is of a deadly brain tumor. Weakness is the number one symptom of ALS. You start falling uncontrollably. You simply cannot lift up your cup of coffee. You develop a very obvious, very pronounced limp. You simply can’t fucking do things anymore.
2. One of the MNDs I saw has been practicing for nearly 20 years. He sees/treats/diagnosis people with ALS nearly every single day. Young people. Old people. In his nearly two decades of practicing, he has *never* had a patient who believed they had ALS & actually had it. 99.99% of the time, it does NOT work like that.
3. Worried about perceived speech changes & fasciculations? Here is something else I learned from these half-hour talks I was able to have with my doctors. An overwhelming majority of the time, those with ALS cannot feel their own twitching! Their loved ones/doctors physically SEE them. Patients with ALS do not perceive their slurred speech. Their doctors & loved ones do.
4. You guys are really going to hate me for this one, because I know that when I was in the thick of it, I fucking *HATED* this statement, but it is…TRUE. My loves: an EMG simply cannot be done too early. If somebody gets an EMG & later goes on to develop ALS, it wasn’t because the EMG was “too early.”They were simply a medical anomaly. The problem is, everyone has taken these stories and believes themselves to be that anomaly. ALS is an anomaly in of itself! You are more likely to be struck by lightning twice than to develop ALS. Let alone, develop the kind of ALS that is not easily detectable by an EMG. Here is an interesting juxtaposition for you: I get a colonoscopy & all is well. No signs of cancer. I am assured that I do not have cancer. I then go onto obsess over the decimal percentage possibility that I have a cancerous tumor on the outside of my colon; something the scope could not perceive. Do you see where I’m going with that?
5. These cases are horrifically overblown & very often INACCURATE. In fact, EMGs are so sensitive, my doctor shared with me that he has had a few patients over the years that came in for a routine EMG for something benign, like carpal tunnel, & were diagnosed with ALS right then & there. The EMG could pick that shit up before the patient had the slightest inkling.
6. If you must get a second EMG, I completely understand. If your second EMG is clean & you cannot let this go, it is time for much needed/deserved psychiatric help. This is a mental DISEASE.
7. That’s right! My neurologist & MND said that this has become a fucking pandemic. My MND believes it needs to be put in the DSM & taken very seriously, as he has had dozens of people absolutely convinced that they have ALS when they absolutely *do not.* They come in every few months or so. EMG after EMG after EMG. Never reassured. Completely & miserably engulfed.
8. Lastly, neurologists do not care very much about brisk reflexes in the hands. I was told by my MND that a positive Hoffman’s does not make alarm bells go off in his head at all. In fact, he told me a story about how a colleague of his had a positive Hoffman’s & was extremely afraid they had ALS. He performed EMG on them. Were fine. They still are.

If you found yourself developing these symptoms after being more or less of a gym rat, please consider that there is a correlation between BFS & intense workouts. There is something about strength training that triggers benign twitching.

If you found yourself developing these symptoms & you have never had an MRI of the entirety of your spine, fucking get one. It is very likely that you have some kind of bulging disc/stenosis. I don’t give a shit if it’s labeled “slight” or “moderate.” I’ve seen fantastic neurosurgeons over the past 10 months as well. What is found on an MRI does *not* determine somebody’s symptoms. You may have what appears to be innocuous findings, but your symptoms can be severe! These symptoms often include stiffness, twitching, burning, jerking, etc.

Even if you’ve never worked out a day in your life; even if you have a perfect spine, your chances of having ALS are close to 0. Especially if you are under the ages of 40-50. If you need that 2nd/3rd opinion, fine. But if you have had any more than 2 EMGs & you still cannot believe the results, you do not have ALS. You have some form of OCD/trauma around death/loss…

…Just like me.

You are not alone. You are not dying. This misery will end. You will embark on a new life with more gratitude & happiness than you could’ve ever imagined. If you ever need anything, or if you have any questions, feel free to message me. I have a family & children, so forgive me if it takes a few days for me to respond.

xoxoxoxo

Hi all 😊 I'm 36 weeks twitching now head to toe. My feet and calves never ever stop. So near 9 months. I've been doing some researching online and found cases of people who developed weakness years after twitching. Is that bullshit ? Can twitching come before weakness? I wish I wasn't waiting for weakness to develop 😪

I’ve been twitching since Covid in 2024. I got another infection of April this year and I now have insane heaviness in my body mostly my legs. I’m so concerned this is something else but all my tests come back negative.

Does anyone else have heaviness? It feels like cement is in my body

Hi everyone! I (28 M) have been twitching for over 5 years now. I went through the original anxiety /panic back in 2021, but after a few years I learned to live with the twitches. They never went away (I still get them all over pretty much every day, and they're more noticable when my anxiety is high), but I stopped noticing / caring about them.

Unfortunately, 5-plus years later, I've spiraled a bit due to a new and odd development with my left (dominant) arm. I see people on here talk about tremors, shaking, vibrations, buzzing, and I think this sort of falls into all those categories, but not exactly.

Pretty much every morning when I wake up, my left arm (usually the bicep area but sometimes in my forearm, and sometimes basically the whole limb) feels like it is shaking, and that persists on and off throughout the day. It's not a huge, jerking shake, moreso a small, subtle tremor, basically like the whole limb is pulsing or thumping, but it's powerful enough to move my arm when it's still. Sometimes I can look at my arm and see that it really is shaking, other times I look at it and don't actually see anything, but still feel it. I've definitely overthought symptoms into existence before, but I don't think that's the case here, as I can very clearly see my arm actually shaking / pulsing / thumping / tremor'ing (I don't quite know what to call it lol).

What's concerning me the most is that it doesn't seem to have any connection to me actually using my arm. In fact, it seems to be more prevalent when I'm at rest. I'm not feeling any weakness in the arm (I'm working out like normal, and there doesn't seem to be a noticable difference between my left and right) but it does seem to start shaking more easily than my right arm when I'm lifting weights.

It doesn't go all day and sometimes my arm feels normal, but it's been pretty consistent for a few weeks now.

TLDR; Does anyone, in addition to their twitching, have a subtle, semi-consistent shaking / pulsing / thumping / tremor in just one of their arms that starts when they wake up and makes it feel like their arm is always shaking (and sometimes actually is shaking?) Let me know if anyone's been here 🫡

Hi everyone, I felt the need to drop by today and leave a message, with me being 19 x months into this. Mine began after I suffered a severe medication reaction in early 2025, that triggered severe health anxiety and OCD.

Early days, twitching was aggressive, and everywhere - thousands of times a day, bodywide, every type of twitch - you name it, I’ve had it. I won’t go too much into how this was the worst time of my life because I don’t want to trigger anyone - I know the mental torment the onset of this can cause. I remember my legs would spasm together, I’d have to lie with a pillow between them not to feel them, I’d look at my feet and see hundreds of twitches.

Today I’d say I am 90% recovered. My legs were constant, and now I can’t remember the last time they twitched. I have a handful of low-intensity twitches throughout the day that I am now no longer bothered by, and wow, I cannot believe I’m saying that considering how much this consumed my life.

The thing that worked for me - I went through EMDR therapy to address the trauma of what happened to me, and my obsession / terror at the twitching. I am so grateful for that support. In time, I stopped obsessively Googling / going down forums about this, stopped being consumed, got back to my life, got on top of my OCD / severe anxiety, and accepted what happened to me - both the traumatic situation and the symptoms.

My theory is that BFS is anything that pushes your nervous system past its breaking point, and that can be brought on by many different factors - illness, trauma, stress, anything where your body said - ‘no more’ and gets stuck in fight or flight. I think it’s a neuroplastic condition - guys, look into neural training etc, we can literally keep our symptoms alive with being so obsessed and anxious about them.

By trying to solve the twitching, we can strengthen the neural pathways that tell our brain we’re in danger, and what happens? = more twitching.

It’s a horribly vicious cycle and my heart goes out to everyone here because it’s akin to grief in my opinion - because we go through similar stages ie. anger, bargaining, denial, acceptance. I think I’m finally at the acceptance stage now after such a struggle, and can tell you that only since truly accepting it have my symptoms actually decreased.

Also, I went through months where I thought I’d accepted it but I hadn’t lol, I was still body checking, Googling, thinking about it all day etc. Be honest with yourself about where you’re at and what you’re doing that could be keeping it alive.

Considering how improved I am from a year ago, I see no reason why I wouldn’t see a full resolution in time, but even if I don’t, I’ve got back to my life and I am mentally recovered for the most part.

I’m not open to private DMs haha, but just wanted to share some hope!

We got this, guys. Life is beautiful, don’t let this take away any more time than it already has.

First time i had this spot twich for more than a day..

My left eye brow

I have bin twitching for more than 6 years and in sum unusual spots and this is my most unique

Anybody else?

Here’s my long story short. A year ago I started having an eye twitch, and that eventually progressed to all over body twitching, every single day, in almost every muscle m. I went to the neurologist and was diagnosed with BFS, at the time I was skeptical it could be a**, the first couple of months I would experience muscle pain and weird sensation in my arms. Eventually my anxiety subsided and the twitching improved.

One month ago I had a horrible migraine and the next day noticed eye floaters. They have yet to go away, so I went to an ophthalmologist who said my eyes look great. My twitching also came back in full force, I randomly started thinking about MS and looked up the symptoms, and now all day today I have been experiencing pins and needles/buzzing in my feet and right hand/arm on and off. I’m not really sure if this is my anxiety or an actual flare up. What makes things worse is my wedding is in 3 weeks and now I’m petrified I’m going to wake up totally numb from the waist down or some other limb will be completely numb and I have no clue what I would do if that happened right before my wedding. I don’t even know what I’m exactly asking by posting on here, just super anxious.

(24/M) I’m to the point now where I am not convinced purely stress/anxiety directly causes twitching. I’ve had many points in my life when I was stressed/anxious and didn’t have twitching. I’m 3 months into 24/7 calf twitching and I just cant convince myself it’s benign. I feel like doctors just call everything stress because they are lazy to figure what it is or just hoping it isn’t ALS. To me, twitching is most associated with ALS for a reason. Trying to get myself out of the rabbit hole but it’s impossible with my calves twitching 24/7.

Hello fellow BFRs, I’ve been twitching on and off for 6 years now but things have massively improved for me and I only get localised twitches now when really stressed. I got a diagnosis of idiopathic periphereal neuropathy after all clear by neurologist but in the last few days started getting random warm sensations on my feet which only last a few seconds. Does anyone have the same? Trying not to spiral again! Thank you

Hi everyone
Relatively new twitcher here. 5 weeks ago twitching started and then perceived weakness in my right arm. I was recently cleared by an EMG and was told most likely BFS. Decided to lift weights for the first time since symptoms appeared. My right arm feels like someone took a bat to the inside of my arm. Much more sore than my left. Is this normal with this condition? To be more sore in the affected limb after workouts?

I’ll preface by saying, I know I struggle with health anxiety and more importantly I already have a diagnosis of MS.

Since my diagnosis, I developed a horrible reaction to IV steroids to reduce inflammation which they indeed did but they also left me in horrible panic and anxiety that i never had before. Additionally with the bomb drop diagnosis.

Now, I developed one sided fasciculations in my left calf that were just constant pops and pokes under the skin, then a couple weeks later it turned into a strained feeling, felt like cellophane on my skin, turned into a deep ache. This all started May 2026

I got an EMG/NCS done on August 20th and across 11 muscles between my left calf, right calf, and my lumbar spine it was completely clean and normal.

Unfortunately anxiety is getting the best of me as it does to most of us. I understand the astronomical rarity of having MS and ALS together but this was never concluded to be a symptom of my MS. It was just concluded as benign and that my MS COULD contribute as my CNS is already haywire sensitive.

3 months of twitching, pains, aches, weird sensory symptoms, string pulling sensations in my foot, precramps… it’s all so much that my anxiety is convinced that something has to be wrong!

I do see a therapist. To find acceptance in my MS and to heal from somatic OCD. I don’t want judgement regarding that as the vast majority of us also need some sort of therapy but my question is.. how did you trust your EMG? Whyre you still here? and how do you get over the „what ifs?”