2-Year Journey with Twitching Feet

Hi all...Not sure if anyone remembers me but my twitching started September 2013. Nearing the 2-year mark now and haven't been scared of ALS since the 9-month mark. You can look at my previous posts including a few summaries if you are interested.Anyways, I had questions about cramping and what cramping ACTUALLY is.To simplify, I have permanent twitching in my feet. If I get out a light and shine it along the foot, it looks like worms are writhing under my skin 24 hours a day.All this weird stuff happened to me following a bout of bronchitis. Now once my fears settled, the truth is that it doesn't affect me except for in one minor way. My feet which twitch, are more sensitive to feeling crampy. Now when doing certain exercises or stretches, this is actually quite limiting.Whenever my twitching is highly active. My big toes are actually pulling themselves down slightly. And doing certain things such as sitting on my legs with my feet pressing down will make them start to cramp.Now here are my questions around cramping. My understanding of a cramp is when the muscles pulls uncontrollably and you are in intense pain. The truth is, I have only actually had ONE cramp since this entire thing started by that definition. What usually happens is you feel that cramp feeling coming on and you move position or straighten the foot to get it to go away. Is that still a cramp? What is the difference?That's the only thing that annoys me. Is there a way to make it stop? Or is it essentially a side effect of the permanently twitchy feet ?Thanks.

Hi,cramping in the foot most probably (and most frequently) means you have unsifficient blood supply.There is a little you could do with that, most adequate actions incude quitting smoking if you smoke (smoking leads to permanent spasm of small vessels), check for pre-diabetic status or diabetes (high sugar negatively affects small blood vessels too), keep your feet warm, avoid tight shoes, keep excercising.

But you didnt actually respond to the question as to whether or not what I get is ACTUALLY cramping...

oh my, how could I know by the distance and by the remote description? If you have involuntary painful muscle cotraction, it is cramping, but why not? I have tons of them in my feet, and almost all and every people after 30 -35 have some unpleasant cramp-like feeling in the feet first time in the morning. That is due to circulation issues.

Sorry I responded in a hurry on my phone and didn't intend to sound so brusque.I feel you aren't entirely understanding based on your descriptions what I mean by a 'cramp coming on.' My wife and I both get them often. I want to know if this actually is a cramp or what's it's called and if other people see an increase of them in twitching areas.For example if I rest my foot funny on something I'll feel it coming. If I don't immediately move it and relax it, it will cramp up.

Well, for me the difference between extremely painful full size cramp and cramp which you prevented by stretching the muscle is just the degree of mucle contraction. If you miss the 'coming' feeling for a half of second, it might develop in a nice full size O GOSH cramp - it happens to me on my workouts quite often. I do not know any other name for this process and call it cramping as well. Hope this is an answer to your question.

My wife has struggleed with an issue over the last 2-3 years which sounds very similar. Started with twitching and has really escalated recently.Recently, she has been getting a very strong twitch in the arch of her foot, then her big toe pulls down hard and holds there. If she just jiggles her foot it will release the toe from that position, but if she does nothing, it will stay in that position and proceed into a cramp. It happens in the big toes on both feet, but not at the same time.She hasn't seen her doctor since this behavior started, so we don't know if they would consider it a cramp or not. She certainly sees it as such, and is extremely worried about it. To her, it feels like a major progression to go from just twitching to this. As you mention, it is very limiting. Any amount of walking, or even just standing on her feet, cause her feet to go crazy like that. She says this just isn't right, that doing basic stuff like walking should cause a person so much trouble. She's convinced something worse is at play, and is very scared. Does this sound similar to what you are experiencing? Anyone else out there have something similar?

ScaredWifesHubby,I can tell same to you - I have that along wth twitches and beside them, in hands, feet, calves and sometimes in other muscles of my body for many years already without any 'progressing' to someting more sinister. This is just due to bad preipheral blood supply. I am doing fitness for a 6 months already and I found that all counterparts of my age (above 40) and even many younger people complain about the same - even moderate physical activity causes feet cramps.I remember times (especially in summer, when electrolyte balance goes definitely bad) when I hardly could turn in the bed or put a shoe on whitout a cramp in the foot or leg. It was so for years, it goes worse and goes better then, so I would advice your wife be a bit more positive about it.