[Cajete]

Hello everyone. My name is Albert and I'm 26 years old. I live in South Florida and I'm currently unemployed and without health insurance. I'm a fairly healthy person and I'm decently active because I like to exercise. However, for the past 3 weeks going on 4 now (nearly a month) I've been experiencing muscle "twitches", "spasms", "fasciculation" (not sure what the correct terminology is) in many places on my body. It started out as small little twitches like the ones you'd get in your eyelids but in a "popcorn" fashion in many spots. My shoulder blades, calves, biceps, thighs and even odd places like the inside my ears, my throat area and sometimes even inside my torso (possibly my abs). Where it occurs the most (and by most I mean in sprees of hours with only minutes of pauses in between) in my inner thighs near my knees. Funny enough, these twitches only happen when I'm resting. They never seem to occur when I'm about and walking or exercising and they never cause me any pain or muscle fatigue. I was reading that potassium and magnesium could be the cause but it makes no sense to me because I have a very healthy diet supplemented by vitamins. Is this abnormal in anyway? I'm thinking I should maybe get it checked out but in my current circumstance it seems kind of ridiculous to show up at a hospital emergency room and I doubt any free clinic is going to just up and give me a free MRI or CAT scan without symptoms to more serious illnesses like ALS and MS which I know I definitely don't have. I don't know what to do frankly, it's getting pretty annoying but it's definitely getting worse. You might think it's me being paranoid but I can tell you for a fact that frequency at which I'm having these twitches since they began has amplified tenfold. I'm read into things like anxiety, stress and depression but what the heck? I'm not stressed, or anxious. What should I do? How should I deal with this?

[Kitt]

Welcome Cajete.

[Cajete]

Originally Posted by Kitt

Welcome Cajete.

Hey there! Thank you! Hoping to set my mind at ease here or perhaps some insight on what I should do.

[mrsD]

Most twitches respond to magnesium therapy.

What vitamins exactly do you take? Vitamins are not minerals, but have magnesium stearate in them for manufacturing purposes. This form is not absorbed by the GI tract.

Foods with magnesium in them are not commonly eaten in the US.

This link explains the foods highest in magnesium:
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/ar...-magnesium.php

You can apply a lotion called Morton Epsom lotion to specific targets like around your knees. A little goes a long way. But you cannot use it around your eyes, or in large areas. You can rotate sites daily though, as one application lasts more than a day. It is really nice and absorbs well. Muscles settle down quickly with it, often in minutes.

WalMart, and Walgreen's carry it. So does Amazon online:
http://www.amazon.com/Morton-Epsom-L...n+epsom+lotion

You can soak in epsom salt baths for more full body effects..
6-8oz in a bath tub with lukewarm water...this often relaxes muscles and calms twitching too.

People who drink alcohol, and coffee in large amounts lose magnesium in the urine. If you use drugs to stop heartburn, you will not absorb magnesium well from food sources.
Doing exercise without attention to magnesium strains muscle functions quite a bit.

[Cajete]

You know what, a few weeks back for about a months or two I was loading myself with coffee. I was having 2-3 large coffees from Seven Eleven On most days. I usually consume a lot of caffeine in general... Lots of Sugar Free Monsters and Coffee that's for sure. Wow. That actually makes a lot of sense. But it's still odd because I eat Bananas religiously, potatoes and peanut/peanut butters, brown rice and chicken are like the staples of my diet.

Either way, I'm probably going to give Magnesium supplements a go and see how that works and definitely cutting the caffeine ENTIRELY now. As far as vitamins go- I'm taking some gummie vitamins for men called "Alive" I picked them up at a GNC.

How will that lotion work? I'm not actually experiencing any pain or discomfort except for the fact that it feels like someone is tapping 24/7

Gosh and trying to fall asleep is the worse.

Thank you so much for your information. Going to try the Magnesium and keeping my fingers crossed!

[Littlepaw]

welcome Cajete,

I would suggest cutting way, way back on your exercise for a period of two weeks to see if anything changes. I had a neuritis of the saphenous nerve for a entire year at the outlet of Hunter's canal (inner thigh above knee) that caused stinging and fasiculations. Several doctors couldn't figure it out. I was afraid it was spread of CRPS. I inadvertently discovered the source as irritation from the recumbent bike when I took two weeks off my workout. Neuritis resolved then came back when I started working out Again. I had never taken long enough off to realize what was happening. I quit exercise again and slowly added back in one at a time till I isolated the bike. Now? no neuritis, no stinging, no fasciculations. It's an easy thing to try....

good luck and I hope you find relief soon!

[mrsD]

Magnesium does many things....

It enhances mitochonrial functions (energy production) my stabilizing the membranes and allowing substrates into them for energy production.

It increases blood flow in the peripheral areas by dilating small blood vessels and also larger ones too.

It works opposite of calcium... as far as muscle contraction goes.
Calcium contracts, and magnesium relaxes. (so it calms tension and twitching)

It blocks the NMDA pain receptors and reduces pain for those with chronic nerve pain, other other types of pain.

It is involved in many other biochemical reactions in the body.

Most people in the US don't get more than 1/2 of the RDA for it from their food.

The lotion is so wonderful... applied at night it also relaxes you and takes muscle tension down, and facilitates better sleep.

This is my magnesium thread....
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread1138.html

I've been posting about it for over a decade online now. It is a simple thing to fix, and you will feel so much better when you do so.