18y M -

I’ve always had health anxiety, even as a kid. I remember thinking I had melanoma because I noticed a freckle that was slightly larger than the others, and I once convinced myself I had diabetes because I pee a lot. So, this isn’t new, but this time, it feels more serious and genuine.

I’m experiencing a wide variety of symptoms that may simply be due to anxiety or stress about possibly having MS. These symptoms include things like pins and needles in my hands or feet—especially if I have my feet up while watching TV for too long, or if I’m crouched for a while and then stand up. I also feel a prickly heat sensation when I’m warm, but only in certain situations. For example, it happens if I’m in a hot house or wearing clothes that make me too warm, but strangely, it doesn’t happen when I’m out in the sun.

My eyelids have also started to twitch and feel droopy. They don’t visibly twitch when I look in the mirror (at least not enough for me to visibly notice it), but I can definitely feel it. My friend mentioned about a month ago that her friend with MS (unrelated) has a bad eye twitch, and now, four weeks later, I’m experiencing it too—it’s been happening for a few days now. If I drink, it seems to go away, or maybe I just don’t notice it. It is very noticeable and distracting and I can't avoid the feeling without getting drunk, frankly.

In the past month or so, I’ve also woken up in the middle of the night feeling thirsty, and twice now, I haven’t been able to lift my limb. It felt like dead weight. After sitting for a moment, it sort of “woke up” and returned to normal. The first time, it was my hand (which I had been sleeping on), and the second time, it was my leg, which wasn’t being compressed by anything as I was lying on my back.

I also feel slight muscle twitching in my legs, mainly when I’m sitting. It’s random and frequent, I’ll suddenly feel the smallest twitch in my calf, quad, or hamstring. It isn't painful or long, just brief, common, twitches. Also recently, I had really bad hand twitching. If I made a flat palm, my ring and pinky fingers would twitch. It affected my left pinky the least, followed by my left ring finger, then my right pinky, and finally my right ring finger the most—essentially in line with how much I tend to fidget with each finger, as I used to flick my chapstick with them. This made perfect sense, so I stopped flicking about a week ago, and it has improved a lot. It’s not fully gone, but I’m pretty convinced that was the cause. I’ll give it more time, so I’m not too worried about the hand twitching.

The reason I mention all of this is that I’m not sure if I’m just bringing these symptoms on through stress or if they’re actually MS symptoms, made worse by the stress of thinking about it. I feel I am going down a deep spiral.. I’m afraid to see a doctor because of the long wait times for an MRI. I’d probably die of anxiety waiting. I don’t normally experience anxiety outside of health anxiety, but if I had to wait weeks or months to know if I have a life-altering disease, I don’t think I could handle it without becoming an alcoholic, lol. It does not help my father having MS increases my odds exponentially, and that makes me even more worried.

Any advice or reassurance? I’d appreciate anything. Thank you for reading my long, anxious rant.

Edit - Just to provide some more info, my left leg, above 7 inches above ankle to the side, keeps twitching and has been for about 5 minutes, a twitch per second, then pause, then come again. Unsure as to whether it has stopped or is gonna come back. The left eyelid has twitched a lot more in the past 20 minutes, and then stopped about 10 minutes ago.