Sometimes the most frightening body symptoms are actually very benign conditions.
So what are the four scariest medical symptoms that are benign or usually benign?
TWITCHING MUSCLES. Another name for twitching muscles is fasciculations.
Benign fasciculation syndrome (BFS) describes a harmless condition characterized chiefly by “twitching” muscles, but often accompanied by muscle cramps and fatigue, and sometimes tingling sensations (which can actually be from anxiety over the condition).
A person can experience only the twitching, and it can persist harmlessly for years.
“Muscles may randomly twitch for many reasons,” points out Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, and medical advisory board member for the Nutritional Magnesium Association (nutritionalmagnesium.org).
She adds, “They can twitch due to anxiety or stress, a sleepless night, too much coffee or after exercise.”
Why is this benign symptom scary? The benign muscle twitching becomes annoying enough for one to search about it online.
Search results bring up information about ALS, an always-fatal neurodegenerative disease; sites (such as alsa.org and mayoclinic.org) list muscle twitching as a symptom.
Some folks with benign twitching muscles may also fear they have multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease–which actually can cause tremoring and trembling.
PVCs. The dreadful premature ventricular contraction (sometimes called premature ventricular complex) makes many people think a heart attack is about to happen.
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PVCs are difficult to ignore and feel very abnormal. Descriptions of PVCs vary somewhat, including “flip flopping” of the heart, skipped beats, extra beats, pounding beats, heart going through chest, fluttering and thumping.
Why is this largely benign condition scary? If you’ve never had a PVC, you wouldn’t really know.
Anyone who’s had reams of PVCs will tell you it’s downright frightening, at least prior to being told by their cardiologist that their heart is healthy. Imagine feeling your heart “jumping around” in your chest.
Though it’s strongly advised that anyone with a “flip flopping” heartbeat should be examined by a cardiologist, this doesn’t mean that PVCs are harbingers of heart attacks.
It simply means that a cardiac evaluation is fully capable of ruling out an abnormality, and this should reassure the patient.
“PVCs are not considered a precursor to heart attack,” says David N. Smith, MD, a board certified cardiologist with Dynamic Health in Charlotte, NC.
However, another cardiologist states: “Three or more PVCs in a row are defined as non-sustained ventricular tachycardia, and an evaluation for underlying disease is mandatory when they occur,” says Norman E. Lepor, MD, cardiologist and internal medicine specialist Norman E. Lepor, MD, who’s with Cedars Sinai in Beverly Hills, CA.
BEETURIA. This will freak anyone out if they don’t quickly connect some dots. The first time this happened to me, my first thought was, “Did I recently eat something bright red? Yes! I had beet juice!”
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Beeturia is when undigested beet juice appears in the urine, coloring it red, pink or orange—making one think they have blood in their urine. How scary is that?
“Stool beeturia” is when there’s red in one’s bowel movements. This was my first experience with undigested beet juice.
The crimson pigment in beets is called betain, and a small percentage of people do not digest this fully. The condition is benign.
Why is this benign situation scary? People think they have blood in their urine or stools. Blood in the urine or stools can mean serious diseases, including non-malignant but serious conditions.
Undigested beet pigment in the toilet bowl is especially frightening to men because they’re typically not used to how blood looks in the toilet bowl, whereas menstruating women know exactly what this looks like.
However, women not familiar with beeturia will find this alarming until they realize it’s just beet pigment. Read here to learn how to tell the difference between beet pigment and blood in your stools.
SLEEP PARALYSIS. Many people are terrified by this. You awaken and literally can’t move. You try to move any part of your body, but can’t. You are paralyzed.
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However, sleep paralysis is benign. However, many men and women fear this every time they go to bed, and no matter how often it happens, they never get used to it. Sleep paralysis may last a few minutes but is benign.
Why is this scary? Well heck, you can’t move. People think they’re dying or have nerve damage. They have no control. They can’t even speak. Sometimes sleep paralysis is accompanied by hallucinations.
They must wait to spontaneously pop out of it. There are two popular explanations for the benign phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
Protects sleeper from physically acting out a dream.
This mechanism is off-kilter in sleep paralysis. Normally, muscles are “paralyzed” by a protective mechanism while you dream.
So if you’re dreaming you’re a boxer, this mechanism prevents you from punching the wall and breaking your fingers.
The mechanism is supposed to turn off before you awaken. If it’s delayed, you’ll be aware of the paralysis. Isn’t that fascinating? And the hallucinations reflect the delayed exit from a dream state.
Return from an out-of-body experience.
Paranormal enthusiasts note that when an individual remembers dreaming right before they experience sleep paralysis, this means that the “dream” was actually an out-of-body experience, which is why the “dream” is typically lucid—in which the individual is flying—not in an aircraft, but via their body.
The paranormal community also believes that sleep paralysis is a launching pad to out-of-body travel; it’s a sign that your astral body is preparing to exit the physical body.
There are a number of other very scary but benign or usually benign medical symptoms, but these top four surely are right out there as causing a lot of anxiety and “freaking out.”
But I must say this: Of these four frightening symptoms, only TWO of them are benign 100 percent of the time: sleep paralysis and beeturia.
This means that muscle twitching CAN be a sign of a neurological disease or Lyme disease (but it usually isn’t).
And what you think are harmelss PVCs can actually be a heart rhythm disorder that requires treatment.
Dr. Smith is a published author, national lecturer and Yale-trained physician-scientist certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Cardiovascular Disease.
