Hello, I am currently struggling with the fact that I believe I have been seeing the first symptoms of HD in my husband. We married young (20) and started a family 4 years later. I am currently pregnant with our second child. I have always been aware of his at-risk status but convinced myself and him that he didn't carry the gene since his brother has been symptomatic since age 19 and he was at the time showing no symptoms. He is the most wonderful husband and father I have ever met, in fact everyone we meet comments on how great he is with our daughter. His personality is actually the reason I wanted a child, we both intended to remain child free when we married. He isn't showing any personality changes, just some finger twitches and seems at times more jittery. He works an extremely stressful job, he's a corrections officer for a medium secuirty prison and I am hoping his symptoms are due to the stress. He is going to quit and be a stay at home dad when this baby is born. I'm really just looking for some support right now. I love him so much I can't ever imagine losing him.

Hi and welcome to the forum. There are a lot of things that can cause twitching and being jittery, stress being one of them. I am 47, pHD with early stage cognitive symptoms. I just went to my neurologist this past week and complained of movement. I had problems with my legs jerking a lot and sometimes my arms or torso. Sometimes big jerks, sometimes kind of like being jittery, sometimes kind of like when a chill goes through you. My neurologist is the head of the HD department at the Center of Excellence at UVA and I have a lot of confidence in her.

This has been going on for a long time but it was finally getting to where I couldn't rest well at night. After examining me and asking a lot of questions about the movement, she is of the opinion that it is not HD causing it. She prescribed medicine (the name escapes me) and it seems to be working really well, stopping about 90% of it. A dosage adjustment will probably get the other 10%.

I know it's really hard to not symptom hunt in a loved one, but hopefully some of what you read here will help to put your mind at ease.

Take Care,

Patty

Hi Brandy, it's nice to meet you and welcome. It's really hard to tell if it's hd, or just stress. Hopefully just stress. I have some ideas you might like to ponder. First, has he thought about testing? Does he have life insurance in place, you would want it in place before testing. Is his insurance private, or does he have it through work? If it's through work, you might want to consider this option. Is he quitting his job, or taking a maternity leave, fathers are allowed a leave now too. What i'm thinking is this. If he has insurance through work, he may not want to quit his job and lose his insurance. Have him take a parent leave when the baby is born, then have him get tested. If he tests positive, and is having symptoms, he would be able to leave his job on disability, and keep all his full benefits, see what i mean? Is he staying home because you have a good career you dont want to leave, or is it because you really dont feel he can work any more, so you have to? Either way, i wish you best of luck.

welcome.

Welcome Brandy
You will get some good info here, hang in there.

Thanks everyone, to answer some of the questions I have my master's in social work and a job I love that can support us. He is actually planning on beginning school in NOvember to be a respitory therapist. I have county benefits too for the whole family so we covered in that respect. We do have some life insurance but I think we'll soon be purchasing more. I'm trying my best not to symptom hunt but these pregnancy hormones don't help. We've talked about the situation a few times and he says to let him know if I notice them getting worse. He's always been kind of a jittery guy, possibly from the high amounts of speed he took as a teenager, so I'm trying not to look too much into it. His brother who has been symptomatic for years always seems to move more to me when I'm pregnant too. Thanks again everyone. It's nice to be able to discuss this with people who understand.

welcome to the forum . db

Welcome Brandy

Louise