u/Therealadumm

Hello everyone reading this, I really need to get this off my chest and possibly get some peace of mind before Im able to see my neurologist.

I have been really worried about bulbar onset als for couple of months now. It has started with my speech, out of nowhere I started to trip over my own words, some letters or words started to feel harder to pronounce, I started having this weird feeling that Im more hesitant to speak or start speaking like I froze right before. I started to feel like I have lisp and slurring my words like Im drunk, like Im air hungry after speaking for a bit and that I speak too much “through my nose” if that makes sense. I started asking people around me if they noticed anything but nobody seems to notice any issues. I now super fixate myself in repeating the words I slurred in the first place and I can usually correct myself, I also just straight up say out loud the whole alphabet just to see of I can pronounce all the letters correctly. My speech is also alot cleaner when I whisper for some reason rather than when I speak loudly, this makes me scared that my vocal cords are weakening.

The next symptom I started to notice was my saliva, It started to feel like I have too much of it and need to swallow constantly, when I drink something it always felt sticky than usual. This is sometimes better and sometimes worse however I do not have this everyday.

Another weird symptom is that my tongue cramps in the same exact spot for couple of weeks now, usually when I yawn or when I try to clean my molars from food. This does happen often but not everytime. I also try moving my tongue all the time and see if I can still move it without trouble and thats still seems to be the case.

My throat has this weird feeling of “having a ball or something stuck inside of it” and sometimes when I try to stretch my neck and lean my head backwards it makes me cough.

I just want to add that Ive had BFS around my whole body for the last 5 or 6 years, I dont know if this could have any connection. I also have a severe health anxiety and I can not go without a second without constantly focusing that I might have the big bad diagnosis.

Is there anyone who could explain some of these, maybe give me a little hope? Thank you