Frequent Muscle Twitching for Months

[TheBobinator]

I have been twitching for about 2-3 months now. It started in chest muscles and I did not actual realize it was twitching until about a month into it, because most of the early twitching was not visible. I thought it might have been cardiovascular and had a number of tests done in this area, along with extensive blood work. Prior to figuring out that I had muscle twitching as a symptom, I experienced a number of odd 'muscular' events. I thought maybe I was going to have a stroke or something. My left hand felt odd while opening it from clenching things, I started to veer to the left while walking occasionally and the toes in my left foot would curl up invountarily (I lost my big toenail due to this). When I finally figured out that muscle twitching was my primary symptom, I looked up the possible causes, and started to panic quite a bit, due to the fact that I had a number of symptoms that could have retrospectively applied to muscle weakness or stiffness. My current symptoms are:1) Bodywide muscles twitching, but primarily on the left side. The twitches seem to move to new spots and remain mostly active in those spots for one or two days.2) My left leg and foot remain stiff and I have to focus to keep from having them lock up, especially if I try to play some kind of sport. 3) My left hand is a bit stiff and I can feel tiny muscle twitching in my hand when I clench or expand it out (I don't feel these in my right)4) My head tilts to the left a bit (a friend has noticed this) and the muscle on the right side of my neck is now often sore (compensation?)5) I feel like I am producing excess saliva.6) My tongue has a bizzare area on the left has been slowing losing taste buds over the last couple of months and appears to be losing mass?I have been to 3 nuerologists, one at a Mayo clinic, and all performed a clinical exam which was normal. I have also had 2 emgs, one on my left leg and one on my left leg, arm, and paraspinals. This EMG was perfectly normal as well (The NCS showed mild sensory ulnar nueropathy). I was told by one there is a 100% chance it's nothing serious. Another told me that these symptoms are benign and he has the same risk level of some nueromuscular disorder as I do. They have decided that all of my symptoms are due to anxiety and a hieghtened sense of body awareness and I have to go to a therapist and phychatrist now. One nuero said it could be BFS, but will not diagnose this because they did not pick up any fasics on the EMG. Questions:1) Does this sound like typical BFS?2) I remain concerned becuase the symptoms besides muscle twitching have been slowly progressive and do not come and go. Should I push to see another nuerologist?3) Is there anything else is could be?4) Does anyone else get frustrated with the dismissive nature of doctors involved in this process? I have no history of anxiety, especially health anxiety, and I feel like I am justified with both being anxious regarding these symptoms and pressing to have more consulations and tests, especially non-invasive ones.

 

[Gracer]

Hi Marvan,for me the most odd symptom you mention is your tongue... I would admit however that the only function of tongue is speech and feeding, and should it really lost mass and muscular activity, then you probably would mention also quite prominent dysartria and feeding troubles. If not, probably it is something else - not so nasty as MND, however I have really no idea what it could be.EMG usually picks up even slight damage, like mild ulnar neuropathy you mention (which most of us has nowadays I believe), and there are very little changes to miss specific signs related to neuro damage, as far as I understand the principle. the only issue I ever read is the interpretation of those signs, which sometimes can be more or less related to knowledge and experience fo the neurologist, but in abscence of any significant signs you might not worry at all.Widespread twitches are very common for BFS and usually do not represent nothing speciffically nasty.As for persistent and unilateral symptomes on the left side of the body - have you had your circulatory system checked somehow? you really might have slowly increasing ishemia due to less blood supply to the brain and that can cause many strange symptoms. When I had that few years ago due to permanent strain in mt neck, I had my right side of the body numb and notably swollen (especially leg), and that was going worse for months, but then I had resolved it by some circulatory improvement treatment. Excepr that swollen and numb leg and hand (which mystically disappeared as soon as I decided to go to the neuro, but all my family have seen that it was in place before ), the neuro can not pick up any significant damage and before putting me on drugs to improve circualtion she actually wrote only 'mild sensory neuropathy due to transient ishemia' in my medical records )) so it was also very evident for me and not evident for doctors - so are stress related issues usually.To have anxiety disorder, you must not be 'anxious' in common meaning of the term, weird somatic disorders related in fact to nervous system impairment could happen with both sympathotonic (hignly reactive, hystrionic people like me) and vagotonic people (those who are rather slow reacting and prone to 'melancholy' in terms of our ancestors), it might affect any type of nervous system just as systemic reaction to permanent stress. Who hadn't it in our days!Actually the theory of stress related disorder is supported by the fact that investigations in 2 or 3 institutions did not reveal any physical or noticeable damage. Unless you do not have clinical weakness and proceed successfully for all strenght test in clinical exams, you really might think rather about some stress realted damage than about sinister disability.I can tell only that stress related diseases can be disabling too, however that is reversable.wish you success with the anti-stress therapy if you finally choose it,my best regardsyulia

 

[ShannyB63]

nope in my personal opinion u are fine...u have bfs...clean emgs...work on your anxiety about all this and move on with your life, a lot of the other things u describe could all be anxiety.... )

 

[MarioMasher]

In my personal opinion, pushing for tests and obsessing about test outcomes is way more damaging than BFS or muscle twitches. So my answer is that none of us should ever be pushing for more tests. Once a doctor tells you to go away and leave him alone, that should be the end of it. And that is actually a good thing when he tells you that. He is trying to help you.

 

[TheBobinator]

Thanks for all of the thoughtful replies. I had an echo-cardiogram stress test and they checked my hands with an O2 sensor, so I assume that I am good to go from a cardiovascular standpoint. I assume this is stress related, even though I did not have anything particulary noteworthy leading up to it. My anxiety spiked a bit in the middle of all of this, but I am back to eating, sleeping, and some excercise. It is still hard to ignore the physical symptoms, not so much the muscle twitching, but the persistant stiffness. I have had muscle aches and pains before, but they normally go away in a couple of days with ibuprofen, ice, rest, etc. These have been ongoing for the entire 2-3 months. I really need to focus on my left leg/foot when doing anything that requires fluid movements (playing with kids, sports, etc) to keep from pulling a muscle or tripping. i also have a friend that has permenant nerve damage in his feet. He went in early on for tingling in his feet, they told him it was anxiety, and after 6 months went back in and they told him it was MS. Eventually he went to the Mayo and they figured out it was B12 related peripheral nueropathy. Daily and now weekly shots kept it from progressing, but they said he won't get the feeling back in his feet. I'm sure this is an unusual situation, but still hard also for me to ignore.The physchatrist said that going to more doctors will make the symptoms worse, so at this point I guess I have to trust him and the nuero's and move on. The guy at the Mayo told me that even if I can't move my foot, don't bother coming back because they can't run any more tests anyways. It helps that the feedback on the board from people that have went through this agree. Thanks again.