Originally Posted by FibroFighter

I often find myself involuntarily tensing and contorting my muscles into painful positions—like arching my back very deeply or sharply pointing my foot/toes. This occurs randomly, and many times every day. It can happen in one to three areas of my body at a time, in varying combinations—it can occur in my jaws (clenching my teeth), tongue, back, hands, arms, buttocks, legs and feet. I don't realize I'm doing it until it really starts to hurt! Once I'm aware that I'm tensing, I can make the muscles relax, but most of the time, it just happens again after 10-30 seconds, or if not that soon, a few minutes later (either the same part of my body, or a different one). This leaves my muscles (and sometimes the joints involved) very fatigued, sore, and sometimes feeling as if I have just recovered from a Charley-horse-type of cramp. The only explanation I can think of is that it is stress/anxiety related, but it even happens when I’m having a little–to-no anxiety at all, so I’m not convinced that this has psychiatric or emotional cause. Also, I've tried treating this problem as if it were caused by stress (relaxation/stretching/anti-anxiety meds), with no success. Sometimes the resulting pain, from over-extension of the muscles/tissues, can be partially relieved by NSAIDs, but I would like to stop the actual problem, not just treat the resulting pain. Anybody know what this might be? I don’t really know anything about dystonia, so if someone could tell me if this problem sounds like dystonia or not, I would be very grateful. Thanks.