Fasciculations and Sleep Disturbance

Hi everyone,two questions:In my 5-6 first mounths with BFS I did have about 90 % of "signle" fasciculations, popping everywhere, but thelast 3-4 mounths I have almost only series of fasciculations on one or two or three places at the same time - lasting for minutes to hours.. I have them more and more in nighttime, and it really disturb my sleep. Everytime I move the slightest bit, I "trigger" the onset of series, and to night I had the hardest, deepest, fastest serie of fascicuations in one of my calf that I've ever had. It was SO HARD AND DEEP! I saw the hard/strong movements like the whole leg was "jumping very fast", I thought it was scary and my calf still feels wird. Is this something many of you recognize? I mean the very hard/strong and deep fasciculations, not the one that just feels like small twitches/you see as small "bobles"? When I get a lot of tingeing, it can help there and then to give myself a litte massasge/touching the area, and I've noticed that also some of the series of fasciculations can be stopped if I use the muscle or massages it or just hold my hand on it. When I was at hospital last week I saw info about a condition called dystonia. There are very many forms/types of dystonia. When I read about it it soulds like BFS, except in dystonia the person often get unormal body positions (don't know how to explain in English but read about it) Can BFS be an "under cathegory" of Dystonia??

i posted a bit too early. i was supposed to write that patients with dystonia can also end their miscle contractions with "sensory tricks" that is for example to touch the area involved.. some can even end it by IMAGINE to touch the area. it doesn't help when other people touch... strange... have some of you noted that you can end series of fasciculations with "sensory tricks"??

Well, that is something else, again there is a confusion caused by the word "twitch". Dystonia is contraction of a muscle, while fasciculations is twitching in the muscle itself with no movement effect of that limb (e.g.).If your muscle contracts as a whole, it is not fasciculation. If you can see flickering over the surface of your muscle, it is not dystonia but fasciclations. Fasciculations can be deep in the muscle of course..

hmm...thank you, but still a bit confused.. I saw my whole calf "jumping" up and down very fast and it felt like the hardest deepest fasciculations ever, but I'm not sure if it wuold qualify as fasciculations then...it didn't MOVE my calf as a whole i think..

In large muscles, the fasciculation can cause the muscle "jump" a bit (like in the biceps), but as you may have experienced, it is not a contraction. So most likely it was a fasciculation.

ok, thanx. does the fact that it was SERIES of "it", i mean many hard, rapid, point to fasciculations or can contractions also happen in rapid series, many after each other?

One thing that might help in terms of sleeping is to get a body pillow and sleep on your side with the pillow between your legs. I have seen some people on this forum post how they used that to help with the muscle jumping/ twitching that causes them to lose sleep.

Yeah the pillow between the legs is a BIG help. If you don't have one leg feeling the other leg, it cuts down the sensation by like 80%. It is much easier to sleep that way if the sensation is bothering you.

I am having a bad bout of hard, deep muscle movements (twitches does not begin to describe them) as well. Specifically, I have the entire muscle move along my left arm starting at the elbow and going all the way down to my wrist. Watching that muscle move and jump is surreal. I wish it was NOT real. I watch it and along with the pain in the arm, I just get beside myself. AND now I have a 24/7 twitch in my left eyebrow area. Honestly, it is enough to drive a sane person C-R-A-Z-Y. I just have to remind myself that it is nothing bad but id does make bad words come out of my mouth. All of them begin with the letter F.

Isn't it better for your back to have a pillow between your legs anyway? I thought I heard that somewhere.I get these long deep fasciculations as well but usually don't notice them and they never keep me awake anymore.

Johnnythejet: Such a pillow is good when pregnant woman have trouble with the pelvis, and maybe after birth.. but it's NOT good for me now, because my problem is the other way around! My tingeling and other paresthesas get MUCH worse when I try to wear thight jeans/pant (can not wear it at all) and some days I just need to wear shorts/skirt (lucky me lives in Norway...), and if I have a pillow or quilt beween my legs, the paresthesias get worse, it's better for me with skin contact..anyway, the things that destroys my sleep is VERY MIGRATING pain and deep hard fasciculations, specially in my legs..