tremors ad muscle spasms

[RCGecko]

hmm how strange. are you getting enough potassium? i have spasms too from time to time so i just eat a banana or two and im alright. but it doesnt sound like tourettes syndrome. no joke guys i was diagnosed with tourettes syndrome in kindergarten. i take 3 medications for it now. i wonder if you have restless leg syndrome. definately see a doctor.

 

[ghtpdm5]

seeing plenty of doctors, have a head x-ray tomorrow and an mri friday. all the blood work came back normal, nothing abnormal to speak of.

 

[ghtpdm5]

well so much for the mri today. somewhere along the lines "i work with metal, there are probably shavings in my hands" got forgotten, they pulled the mri to an open one on tuesday. i have no problems that they are concerned with my safety, in fact i respect it fully and appreciate that they are that concerned. the problem is that my neurologist knew, i told him 3 times that i do metal work, it should have been in the notes to the mri techs. so i'm just going to work on my mower and grader, and try to keep spirits high. morale is much better with the warm weather, still have the minor tremors, but haven't had a major one kick my ass in a while. could be the effect of the muscle relaxers getting to my system fully, or could be and effect of high morale. either way, not looking a gift horse in the mouth there.

 

[relic68]

Good to hear your in good spirits, I have the same issue when MRI's come around. To many years in the machine shop have left a lot of surprises in my hands. I still have shards of glass come out of my hands after working at Pella Window's. Life is full of surprises, especially the hidden ones!

 

[ghtpdm5]

yeah, i know how stuff comes out at a later time. every now and then i pick some blue stitches out of my hand, that was 6 years ago now :lmao: its just something ya get used to. dad said he was pulling stitches out of his hand for 11 years after he lost his finger. the one i'm really concerned of is the endmill bite, most chance of having something in there. also where i ripped open my palm a while back working on a keyed shaft, look down and see a lot of blood out of nowhere.

and keeping spirits high is the name of the game right now, shed hasn't been this clean in years, yard is all leveled off, and my pickup is clean. barely spend any time in the house anymore, and that's the way i like to be in the summer. that and have been doing better about making therapy appointments, and that helps out a lot, especially when morale is already high.

 

[ghtpdm5]

just an update. the spasms are still there, got the mri taken care of, and the follow up is on thursday. the mri was a bit of a fiasco even beyond what was previously posted....on the way up, they tried to call me telling me to turn around because the open mri was d.o.s. and the tech was coming from the twin cities (roughly 2 hours). i sleep in the car, i don't like being driven, it scares the hell out of me...part of the anxiety thing. get there, they tell me, check the call time, and was almost there anyway. irate by this point, we leave and get something to drink caffeine wise...get a call that the machine magically started working, and to come back. chew the front desk lady out a bit, apologize to my nurse for chewing her out, and finally get strapped into the mri. they didn't tell me about the head clamp of course....but it seemed to go well. have not gotten a "you have a tumor" call yet, so that's a plus at least.

keeping as busy as i can is the name of the game still....a little leery of firing up the chainsaw to clear trees and cut branches, so been using the machete and recip saw....not much better, but if my arm goes it tends to kick away from the trigger on the recip saw instead of on to the throttle lock on the chainsaw, and i use a back hand swing with the machete, so if anything happens, i'm not chopping towards myself in any way.

still have to take some days to clean or watch movies....have to take the good with the bad.

will update on thursday, hopefully have a concrete answer.

 

[mtdriver]

Hopefully this wont be too long winded, but well see...

I have been diagnosed with a seizure disorder since I was 12 ish. Been in the MRI box few times, hooked to the EEG a few times for short tests and even for week long tests in the hospital. Sure does suck being completely mobile and healthy on a beautiful day and you're tethered to 20' of cables and all you can do is go from your bed to the pooper and back for 5 days while watching 30 channels of TV eating horrible food which requires you to visit the bathroom after each meal. I was constantly on video too so after maybe 5 mins doing my thing they come looking wondering where I am...

Anywho. After all the tests, and two different neurologists, they still don't 'really' know whats wrong with me. Every test comes up perfect.

My 'episodes' are always my right arm and into my back, never the left arm. Sometimes one or the other on the legs, but that's not often anymore. I started with full seizures while leaving REM sleep in the early AM. Awake the whole time, fully conscious, usually 30 seconds to a minute or two at a time. Crying for my mommy because of the pain afterwards. I haven't had a full seizure in over a year now and before that one it had been at least 5 or 6 years. Even at the age of 22 during my last one, I still cried for mommy, worst pain I have ever known. My compressed disk doesn't even come close...

What caught my attention about your post was the amount of similar movements your 'spasms' make you do that my 'seizures' or 'episodes' do to me. While I don't involuntarily swing for my doctor, I do get twitching and my arms tends to go behind me, sometimes even rolling me over in bed. My problem has progressed from early AM, to include early stages of sleep (like within 20-30 mins of falling asleep) to now include episodes in the mid day for what seems like no reason. I still drive and work with no problems, I have full control of all my other limbs, and so far driving and walking while having a small episode has been OK, but it still does scare me. One thing I have noticed bring these on is certain uses of the muscles in my arms or back. Like carrying something awkwardly heavy, or something for long distances, etc. It doesn't happen all the time, but it has twice moving furniture, and a few times carrying steel to the scrap bin at work.

I am on some new meds as of the last few months which are working great. The things I have come to notice that helps the most is less caffeine, staying focused or busy on projects that I like doing, and just generally trying to have a good outlook on every situation whether its good or bad and using that to help keep my stress level as low as possible. When work or my upcoming marriage bothers me I tend to have more issues more common.

Believe it or not, my chiropractor has actually talked to me (and made the most sense on a theory) about certain parts of the nervous system which can cause problems like this. He suggested making sure I have a good calcium intake and some other things I will work on depending how my problem progresses during my buildup of my new drug and phase out of the old.

Be glad your MRI people liked you and cared if you had metal in your body. I found out I had a sliver in my hand after my most recent scan last year. Hurt pretty bad coming back out of the skin!

Best of luck and keep updating. It at least make me feel better knowing there's someone out there who knows what I'm going through.

Jason

 

[ghtpdm5]

so far there hasn't been talk of a long test trial....i'm not going to be a pleasant person to deal with if that happens. especially now, its the time of year that i spend the day outside taking care of the farm.

as far as the pain, i've almost lost half my hand, went through the initial cleaning with no pain help at all, went 6 hours after it happened with nothing, and i'm still rolling when mine get going...its terrible to say the least.

and driving is looking like it may be compromised, i had my leg kick off driving yesterday....i don't drive that much since i really don't leave the farm that much to begin with, but man was that scary! i usually drive back roads, so if they get too bad, its hit the hazards and brakes and take a few minutes to recover. not happy about that, but, well, it happens.

and keeping busy is about my only real comfort. 10 acres of land to take care of, i go out and kick my own ass everyday to keep from letting it get to me. today was a cleaning day, just a touch shaky to do work with the tools. some days are worse and i've come to terms with it. a diagnosis would be a good thing though...even if its bad news.

so far my meds have been doing well with controlling the tremor and help with the pain, on a nerve pain blocker, a muscle relaxer, and now vicodin as well.

and my tremors can last all day with the fairly minor hand shaking, the really bad ones usually stop after an hour since the muscle is just burned out, nothing left in it anymore.

 

[fordlightning + jeep]

i get muscle spasms all the time but thats because the pills i am on but when i told my doctor he told me to deal with it so just a heads up you might get the same but still go see your doctor

 

[ghtpdm5]

as said earlier, the pills should be reducing tremors if anything, and going to see the neuro today about results on tests...he may do a different med combo that is more effective, no clue really.

 

[ghtpdm5]

just got back from the doc, and since nothing abnormal really showed up on the scans, he's going to release me as a patient. no diagnosis, but there's nothing to really red flag me on. he did increase my muscle relaxer dosage to the 3 a day it was before, that worked really well at keeping the big ones down. so i'm freaking ecstatic about no more testing, but a little disappointed for the lack of diagnosis. this is one i'm just going to have to learn to live with he said, and i've already got a decent system down, so adapting shouldn't take that long.