I have irritable bowel syndrome. In 2004 I had been on Prodium for several years. I starting experiencing fasciculations in my calves. I wasn't too worried until they go bad enough to keep me awake at night. Then I read about ALS and MS and got more worried. One night my calf felt painful just pushing on the skin. The next night I had a shooting (sciatica?) pain all the way up my leg. It re-occurred every 5 minutes or so for about an hour. It scared me enough to keep me awake for 3 or 4 hours. One morning I ate a small amount of food and started sweating and felt naseaous. It was like my stomach had not emptied. (Later I realized this was due to an IBS attach from all of the worry).

After reading about MS, at work before lunch, I stood up and my legs felt numb. After lunch I felt fasciculations in my forearms and behind my head. Then my forearms seemed to go tense (like carpal tunnel I guess), and I felt numbness and tingling in my arms and legs.

Over time I found that the less heavy meal I ate, the less numbness and tingling I felt in my arms and legs. I ended up eating bannanas yogurt and oatmeal. I felt nauseous if I tried to eat any thing heavy like meat. I eventually went from 172 to 142 pounds. This made me worry as well. My symptoms improved at night after exercise as well. I think this helped digestion.

My first breakthrough was when I went on domperidone to help empty my stomach. I though I was cured. Numbness and tingling were gone. A few days later though, the symptoms came back in a milder form. I later went on Zelnorm to promote digestive motility and my symptoms improved some more. I still had symptoms which had changed to more of a burning sensation in my calves. Sometimes the burning would be all over my body. I felt like I had a huge sunburn.

The last drug I went on was a low dose of Paxil (20mg) which is supposed to help people with IBS. It eventually made my legs feel weak in the morning when I took it, and it made me sleep a ton, but somehow I started putting weight back on and could eat more foods. My symptoms improved some more but the burning in the calves would bug me late afternoon at work. After exercise the burning would subside quite a bit. I felt like I was on the road to a cure. Eventually I went off the other drugs and stayed on Paxil. Then I slowly tapered down the Paxil. (Near the end I was using a sharp knife to cut each pill into 8 peices and taking 1 eight of a pill).

In hindsight I think most of what I ran into was caused by anxiety over the fasciculations. This made my IBS worse which caused bloating which, I'm guessing, caused pressure on my lower spinal nerves. I've also now realized that my sitting at computers for long periods, and my posture, were causing the fasciculations and the burning in the calves. I still get burning after sitting for extended periods. I now sit on a pillow to lessen pressure under my right thigh. This allows me to sit longer with no burning. I take Acacia fibre (Heather's) for IBS and watch my diet. I've been generally feeling really good for a couple of years now.