Epilepsy and Muscle Twitching

[Outlook1958]

Hi folks,recently I've been thinking wether it is possible that our muscle twitching actually has its source in the brain itself, not in nerve endings or muscles. Let's take epilepsy for example: The seizures in epilepsy are caused by abnormal brain activity and result in uncontrolled muscle movements - the patients shake all over their body, fall down and might even injure themselves due to the uncontrolled movements. My point about it is that an epileptic seizure seems to affect the whole muscle (and many muslces at once), doesn't it? Basically it is possible to mimic such a seizure because the seizure just misuses the normal "movement commands" which you also can use voluntarily.That's different with twitching as it affects only single muscle fibres. I guess it is impossible to make a muscle fibre in your calf twitch voluntarily, the best I could do was actually make the WHOLE muscle jerk slightly. I'm not a neuro of course but I assume that the brain gives the command "contract muscle xy with 30% power". I think the signal frequency indicates how much power to use when contracting - if you pick up an egg you don't want to brake it after all by using 100% of the muscle's strength). The signal goes through the spinal cord and is then split up near the muscle, where the nerve splits up and the thin nerve ends are connected to the muscle fibres and converts the signal to a chemical process using potassium and calcium (or was it magnesium?) which make the fibre contract. Does that all mean that the source of BFS can't be in the brain, or is there an error in my argumentation?Best Regards

 

[Savanturn]

Yeah, if you look at the CNS architecture, nothing in your brain (even brain tumours) cannot induce fasciculations. Brain tumors can (and often do) induce muscle twitches, meaning contraction of whole muscles.Your brain controls whole muscles, anterior horn cells are the place where single muscle fibers are "remotely cotrolled" and their degeneration causes twitching in ALS. About BFS, due to clean EMG many suppose its not neurogenic but myogenic disease..but nobody knows

 

[Outlook1958]

Thank you for your answers!Pinprick, so your info says that a clonus (I guess the same as "myoclonos" as "myo-" just means "muscular") causes stretching of a muscle with a large motion. That's actually far away from twitching, isn't it? By "twitching" I mean the typical BFS twitching, not whole muscle jerks. If the thigh twitches it doesn't make your leg jerk. A twitching finger can make the finger move, but the reason for that might be that the muscle for that finger is so small that it will already move a little if only some of the fibres jerk.My main point was if the brain can make a single muscle fiber twitch (with the peripheral nerves being okay) - apparently it can't because it doesn't control the distinct fibers. Myocloni however can for example occur with MS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, which all do damage to the brain but do not destroy the peripheral nervous system in the way **S does.Tingling/burning etc is a different story because it rather has to do with the sensory nerves... To be honest, I haven't investigated the sensory nerve issue as deeply as the motor nerve issue, but sensor nerves do have ends too, at the sensor cells. The Wikipedia article on "Action Potential" and "Neurotransmission" explains a lot about how our nerves work, I really recommend to have a look at it, although it requires some basic knowledge of chemistry. I am very sure that the reason for BFS is some disorder in the electrochemical neurotransmission near the nerve ends.

 

[Savanturn]

Piprick, you are confusing upper motor neuron signs and lower motor neuron signs. UMN (which is e.g.clonus) has nothing to do with fasciculations, it is repetitive contraction of the whole muscle after sudden flexion. Clonus is detected clinically and in combination with twitching it is considered as omninous sign, since twitching and clonus means both UMN and LMN involvement and we all know what disease cause that.Burning, tingling etc. has nothing to do with motoric nerves..

 

[Outlook1958]

This is possible, but are you sure that Benzos don't upset the nerve ends as well? Maybe there are different types of BFS after all, with different causes. I am pointing out to the twitches by the way, those single-fiber twitches, which are my only BFS symptom. I'm referring to the electrochemical neurotransmission because it sort of explains why a lack of magnesium or potassium are often held responsible for twitching and cramping. From the biological point of view it would even make some sense.I have never taken Benzos, but three years sound like quite a long time. I have heard a lot about withdrawal symptoms of Benzos and other psychopharmaca, and that's probably the reason why so many doctors here in Germany won't prescribe you Klonopin if you just come up with twitching and tingling and some anxiety about it.By the way, I'm still suspecting Metoprolol to be responsible for my twitching because it started three days after the first pill. However I still have a lot of doubts about that because it's actually not supposed to affect muscles or nerves near the muscles.

 

[Outlook1958]

So do you maybe have a combination of Klonopin withdrawal and BFS? Might be the case after all... Is your tinnitus actually completely gone now?Magnesium didn't help me as well, turning down on coffee and Aspartame-sweetener (I read your advice a month ago or so and followed it) didn't help either. But twitching or not, Aspartame isn't good anyway... many people say it increases the risk of getting cancer (ok tell me something that DOESN'T increase that risk nowadays).Metoprolol is a common and quite effective betablocker, a selective Beta-1 blocker. It is mainly used to lower the blood pressure and the heart rate. As far as I know it sort of jams the adrenaline receptors in the heart muscle (or at least some part of them) so that the heart doesn't go crazy if you have too much adrenaline in your blood. It isn't supposed to block anything else and there shouldn't be any of those adrenaline receptors in the muscles of nerves, so this effect is actually not possible. On the other hand, even if twitching isn't stated as a side effect, "muscle weakness" and "muscle cramps" are. I do not experience any of the latter, but it shows that there CAN be some influence on the muscles after all, hmm.