Alcohol withdrawal and muscle twitches
 

I quit drinking 23 days ago after 7/8 years of drinking at least a bottle of wine a day. For the last few years, whilst drinking I had begun to get symptoms like, sore feet, burning shins and tingling hands on a morning. After making many a promise to myself that I would/should stop, I decided to actually do it.

Now after stopping, I have begun to get small/fine muscle twitches. Predominantly in my feet and calves, but they do also occur elsewhere in my body. Can anybody else out there relate to these specific symptoms?

This may signal two common things:

1) low blood sugar spells. If the twitches go away when you eat, that is a diagnostic sign.

2) that you are low in magnesium intake from foods.

This link gives food choices for magnesium:
http://www.slowmag.com/

The metabolism of alcohol provides glucose to the body in a specific way. When you stop drinking, this metabolism has to shift
and this takes some time. Many newly sober people get carb and sugar cravings, as a result. This signals a lower than average blood sugar reading. Once your body adjusts, usually this goes away.

Thanks for your reply MrsD. I shall give magnesium supplements a try to see if can shove things along a bit.

SlowMag is a good choice to try. You would use one tablet twice a day.

Avoid the OXIDE form as that has shown in studies to be very poorly absorbed.

There is a lotion, Morton Epsom lotion you can rub into the area affected. It is at WalMart and Walgreen's locally, and online at Amazon. It is still pretty new and not everywhere yet.
WalMart also has a good price for the SlowMag.

Many thanks for your advice. Following your first reply I began researching the benefits of magnesium and it sounds staggering. I've just been out to the health foods store and picked up magnesium citrate - hopefully this will provide some relief.

I realize this post is almost a year old now, but I was wondering if you ever got your issue figured out? I am experiencing the same thing right now, after about 25 days sober. I had taken some benzos for about a week to help with the anxiety issues I had from withdrawal and after I quit those, the twitching started.

Hi rreihart. Sorry for not replying sooner; I've not been on here for a while...

The muscle fasciculations slowly started to abate but never totally went away. Probably because I thought I had beaten the drinking problem and started on it again. It first started with a couple of drinks once or twice a week. Then it escalated over a number of months back to the 'at least a bottle of wine' thing again. I've not touched a drop this time in over two months and I'm hoping it can stay that way.

How are your symptoms?

Congrats on quitting!
 

I did myself for New Year's and found I had sugar cravings at night. I suspected it was to replace all the sugar I was drinking in my wine every night. Baby steps...:)