body twitches…

[A zombie]

so i have what i'd like to call body twitches that seemingly come and go. Last night i was trying to observe them a little closer and it's more like electricity going through my body and when it fires off it goes off like every 5 seconds. The only thing that will stop them is for me to take lorazapam or an rx sleep aid.
Just a few weeks ago i was sleeping great… i was passing out on the couch and then going to bed and being able to get to sleep. This means the twitches, zaps , electricity weren't firing off in my body.
I had first thought this was a low magnesium symptom, but i really don't know anymore.
I have high cortisol at night and i'm now wondering if what i'm experiencing is like adrenaline surges??
has anyone ever had what i'm describing?
It goes off in my legs, my stomach my hip, my hands. It's all very random.
I've been taking phospylyltle serene (sp) at night to lower cortisol but it almost seem like the PS is making the twitches worse…
I'm in such a bad place with sleep. I have a 15 month old and 7 year old and i can't live like this. And i just hate to take loraz etc but most nights , if i don't take it , i won't sleep….

 

[AndyPandy]

so i have what i'd like to call body twitches that seemingly come and go. Last night i was trying to observe them a little closer and it's more like electricity going through my body and when it fires off it goes off like every 5 seconds. The only thing that will stop them is for me to take lorazapam or an rx sleep aid.
Just a few weeks ago i was sleeping great… i was passing out on the couch and then going to bed and being able to get to sleep. This means the twitches, zaps , electricity weren't firing off in my body.
I had first thought this was a low magnesium symptom, but i really don't know anymore.
I have high cortisol at night and i'm now wondering if what i'm experiencing is like adrenaline surges??
has anyone ever had what i'm describing?
It goes off in my legs, my stomach my hip, my hands. It's all very random.
I've been taking phospylyltle serene (sp) at night to lower cortisol but it almost seem like the PS is making the twitches worse…
I'm in such a bad place with sleep. I have a 15 month old and 7 year old and i can't live like this. And i just hate to take loraz etc but most nights , if i don't take it , i won't sleep….

so i have what i'd like to call body twitches that seemingly come and go. Last night i was trying to observe them a little closer and it's more like electricity going through my body and when it fires off it goes off like every 5 seconds. The only thing that will stop them is for me to take lorazapam or an rx sleep aid.
Just a few weeks ago i was sleeping great… i was passing out on the couch and then going to bed and being able to get to sleep. This means the twitches, zaps , electricity weren't firing off in my body.
I had first thought this was a low magnesium symptom, but i really don't know anymore.
I have high cortisol at night and i'm now wondering if what i'm experiencing is like adrenaline surges??
has anyone ever had what i'm describing?
It goes off in my legs, my stomach my hip, my hands. It's all very random.
I've been taking phospylyltle serene (sp) at night to lower cortisol but it almost seem like the PS is making the twitches worse…
I'm in such a bad place with sleep. I have a 15 month old and 7 year old and i can't live like this. And i just hate to take loraz etc but most nights , if i don't take it , i won't sleep….

Hi there Zombie. Love your name! I had these sensations quite a bit in the acute phase and less so these days. It feels just like when you have a nerve conduction study done and they pass current through various parts of your body. The zapping and twitching sensations I experienced were explained to me as nerves randomly firing. I haven't looked into why they do this. Perhaps someone else on PR knows. I didn't have these sensations before I developed ME/CFS. In my case, the sensations occurred quite randomly and in various parts of the body. I had no control over them and they were quite painful. They seemed to go away of their own accord. They seemed to coincide with when I was bedridden/very inactive. Now that I have improved a bit to mostly housebound, I rarely get them.

My heart goes out to you. Lack of sleep is so tough.

 

[DadgummedShango]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasciculation

I understand muscle twitching is quite a common symptom in ME/CFS. I think I saw Dr. José Montoya state that it's a common feature in some neurological conditions so might point to neuro involvement in the pathophysiology of CFS/ME as a condition generally.* Otherwise I don't think much is known re cause in ME/CFS.

I had it quite a lot at the beginning, it's steadied over time but I get sometimes repeated whole body jerking when getting off to sleep. Afraid I can't speak to personal experience of treatments. Best wishes.

*Edited to clarify.

 

[Aileen]

I've been having trouble with twitches/spasms the past few months. Mine mostly occur on one side of my face. They can also progress to my shoulders and upper body jerking. Once and a while I'll have an arm or leg jerk, kind of like when they test your reflexes in the doctor's office and your leg kicks.

The facial/ upper body problems got considerably worse when I got up to 15mg of amitriptyline. In Sept, I had 2 bad reactions at the eye doctor's office. I was given an eye drop that I'd had many times before. Within 5 minutes the twitching started. A little later the body jerking started. It lasted an hour. Same thing with a different drop a few weeks later. I had never had a problem with either in the past.

Amitriptyline, which I'm on as a migraine preventative, is known to lower the seizure threshold. This means that it takes less of a stimulus for the neurons and muscle cells to fire. It sounds like you may be experiencing a similar problem. Your brain is misinterpreting signals it gets from the body. It is treating a very small signal as if it were much more important than it is. For example, you drop a golf ball on your foot and your brain thinks it's a bowling ball.

I am titrating off the amitriptyline (Elavil) and am trying to figure out what to replace it with as it was helping. This doesn't make sense because a lowering of the seizure threshold, which clearly happened, should have made my headaches worse, not better. I'm considering nortriptyline or Doxepin. Anyone have any opinions on this?