NeuroTalk Support Groups - muscle spasms and pain

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- - muscle spasms and pain (https://www.neurotalk.org/multiple-sclerosis/201150-muscle-spasms-pain.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by NurseNancy (Post 1051924)

i don't have a lot of spasms but i do have tons of muscle pain; all over my body but especially my legs. sometimes meds help. other things i've tried are massage, heat and stretches.

don't do too much heat all at once. 15-20 min on and then off. you don't want to dry the muscle out. and, moist heat is better than dry.

i hope your dr works at dx'ing this for you.

Thank for the advice, the only problem with wet heat is that it makes my legs too weak, pins and needle feeling even though I do it some still.

sham,

Everyone is different and you kind of have to experiment to see what works for you. Keep trying different things and please do share.

With love, Erika

Thanks so much for all of the advice...I was doing yoga a little before all of my major symptoms but I quit and started it again this morning and I feel better. It hurt while I was doing it because my muscles were so tight but I feel more limber and it does not hurt so bad to move about..

Things that help muscle spasm pain for me:

massage,
heating pad (have to be careful not to overheat yourself though),
tizantidine in small doses,
valium,
mmj if legally available
I've heard magnesium can help.

tizantidine is my last resort because it makes me very groggy.

best of luck to you :)

Not doing too much exercise at one time, as others have said, is a good idea--but doing a little almost every day. A short walk is good, in the clean air, in addition to the walking around the house to do things. But a long walk will sometimes cause spasm (such as the one of the upper lip I was discussing yesterday, if it was a spasm, and I now think it was).

I concur with Goldie that magnesium will help. Many years ago, so long ago I forget the year, a neurologist at Scripps put me on magnesium for spasm, after Baclofen and Zanaflex made it impossible for me to function (unless walking into walls with Baclofen is considered OK). This helped and has helped all of the years since then. I still have some pretty bad spasm making my legs twist and move at night, but they are not especially painful, just very irritating. The only way (in addition to magnesium) that I can deal with them is stretching before bedtime (you said yoga helped) and rubbing out the knots in my legs. My arms have always been weak, but they are less weak since I started rubbing out the knots, at the suggestion of my pcp's assistant, who has a degree in movement therapy. It may take a good long time to conquer the knots, but it can be done usually, not always.
I take 1000 mg of magnesium a day and 1000 of calcium (cal at a different time than mag) and have upped my D3 lately to 1600 a day.