Baby muscle spasms, due to low potassium???

[AirForceDad]

Hi,

In the last two days my seemingly healthy-almost 8 month old daughter has been having involuntary arm/shoulder/upper body spasms.  Yesterday, I saw it happen maybe three times, (2-4 twitches per instance) today, there were probably over 100 times that she had this spasm, all except while sleeping. No fever or any other sign of sickness.  Seems to have most when she's excited, like an excited fist pump. Any other parents have this due to low potassium? She is exclusively breast fed and for almost 2 months has been eating rice/oatmeal veggie/fruit servings with 4 nursing sessions daily. Now, lately we have not been giving her the Poly-vi-sol vitamin regularly, maybe once a week, if that. So before I freak out over what brain disorder that is causing this in an otherwise perfectly healthy baby with no complications EVER since conception, I hope someone may be able to help. Thanks.

[plymouth]

i would go ahead and call ur pediatrician. could be nothing but with little ones its best just to call ur doc. try to get back on track with ur vitamins and maybe she just strained something. are there any signs or symptoms of pain or discomfort with the twitches?

[AirForceDad]

No, she is a very happy baby. Her motor skills are great, if anything scooting across the floor forwards better this morning. She can be laughing while it'll happen, it mainly happens when excited by either a toy or feeding her some cereal/veggies. I've observed her sleeping for over 45 min's total at different naps, and I don't see any jerking/twitching/spasm while sleeping. I have called the pediatrician, closed on sunday. I'm debating taking her to emergency today, all they'll do is check her vitals which I'm sure are fine, maybe they'll take blood work which I'm very interested in her iron and potass. levels. I'm just surprised I haven't found anything like this with other breastfed only babies, but I haven't searched that deeply. Thanks for your reply!

[RockRose]

AirForceDad - you describe this as if it's an involuntary muscle reaction - are you sure it's involuntary?  My nephew started something like this at that age - they called it "being intense" for lack of any better word.   It was hard to tell whether he was doing it voluntarily,  but it could replicate it EXACTLY if you said hey Dave be intense.  

Since then I've seen parents describe this on this forum occasionally.  

I think you're doing the right thing taking her to the doctor.  But first,  get good video of her doing this because its hard to picture with just a verbal description.  Video is a GREAT thing to have at the docs office!

Best wishes.

[mommyofnathan]

I would suggest you take her to a specialist.  I don't think you should ignore abnormal movement patterns.  Better be safe than sorry, ask for an EEG.  Rock Rose has a good point, for some reason once they go to the doctor, there's nothing wrong!!  good luck

[mummy0208]

my four year old son when excited twist his hands round and in the air in a fist,also when he is sitting down or lying down settleing for sleep his face contorts as if he is pictureing things and his arms and legs are thrashing around when i talk to him and ask him what he is doing he says he is thinking!he doesnt seem to be aware he is doing this and has done so since he was about six months old.what is it?

[Annasmom327]

My daughter has similar movements.  She is six months old and when I am feeding her a bottle her arms (not at the same time) flap up and down.  I get worried because to me they seem to be involuntary.  I know that can be a sign of cerebral palsy.  However, at this time I have been advised to "wait and see" how her motor skills develop because she is on point otherwise (developmentally).  So I am keeping my fingers crossed that she will outgrow this and have a normal lifestyle.  I will keep you and your daughter in my prayers and hope for the best.

[KimHaas]

Wow - I was just perusing the internet seeking some advice for the EXACT same symptoms.  Our 7 1/2 month old  seems to also have these shoulder spasms - almost like a muscle tick, like he's shrugging his left shoulder.   He's very happy and it doesn't seem to bother him at all, I've just noticed it more and more.  Let me know what you find out.  I'm calling our pediatrician tomorrow ...

[mommyofnathan]

just make a video recording of it first.  Children (regardless of their level of abilities) have the funny way of NOT doing what you want them to do for the doctor...

[malcolm300]

My baby boy is doing these spasms, he's 8motnhs old. None of the above have reported what came of their visits to doctors or what has happened since. Can anyone say what happened or give any advice?

Much appreciated

Malcolm

[Brockyboy]

Wow my 8 month son is doing the shrugging thing aswell. I didnt know whether to go to the doctor or not. It first started as a twitch to the left shoulder and now its turned into a dropped head movement. I have no idea why he has just started doing it. Ive only noticed it in the last 3 weeks. He is a breastfeed bub, and eating fruit, vegies, custards and yogurts each day. He is extremely happy with no regard to what he is doing. He can do it 6 times in a row than nothing for a while. He has excema on his neck so I thought it might that might be making him do it, like a lazy way of scratching it.???

[adzogolonzo]

Just to try and help.  I have a 5 month daughter who does this.  Seems to normally be when she is tired, or just woken up.  My Daughter was diagnosed as having cerebral Palsy from birth and though we believe them to be muscle spasms, there is a chance they can be very small fits.  So it is also worth checking these things out

[JennaAndAJ]

My breastfed 5 1/2 month old son started having shoulder spasms a few days ago... it looked like his whole left arm was straightened and his shoulder would shrug up to his ear, then he would be like it never happened for a few seconds or a minute, and it would keep happening.  The three days that he had these spasms, it was while he was in his hichair at around 10 in the morning, eating cereal or applesauce for breakfast.  

I took a video on my camera thee days ago, 1 minute and a half long, with 19 spasms, and he was doing it again so I called his pediatrician yesterday. She had me bring him in, she rotated his shoulders, had him hold something in both hands to see if he could hold things normally, she even felt around his stomach, and then she told me to take him to the hospital today and have an X-ray done to check his joints... ?  Which confuses me.  I asked if she had ever seen something like this before and she said no, she didn't even know what diagnosis to write on the scrip to take to the hospital.

We decided to wait a day or two and see if he keeps doing this... He's such a healthy baby, there were no complications with my pregnancy or birth, and he hasn't even had a cold.  Right now we are going to wait and see.

[flare]

Hi,

My daughter is 9 1/2 months now and just started this shoulder twitching a few days ago as well. It is worrying us a lot. It initially was just a couple of times a day, now it seems to be happening quite often..maybe because we are watching her closely now. The twitches does not seem to bother her and it last just a few seconds then stops. Sometimes her shoulder will go up to her cheek, sometimes is just a tiny twitch. Mostly happens on her right shoulder. Going to take her to see a Paed this week.

Has anyone got any results back from their visit?

[jazzcats729]

My 7 month old is doing this exact same thing - I went online to try and find some information and this discussion describes perfectly what she is doing.  She is also very healthy and breast-fed.  I am really freaked out - has anyone gotten any answers yet?

[jazzcats729]

Did some more research - looks like possibly benign myoclonic seizures.   I am going to take her to the doctor on Monday and hopefully he will have a neurologist look at her.

[MsMummy]

I have been looking up information because my 8 month old son has had the same twitching described in this forum.  I am going to take a video of him and take it to the doctor but would like to know the results of anyones visit to their doctor does anyone have results yet?

[jazzcats729]

We have finally gotten some answers.  My daughter had an MRI that was normal and then we saw a neurologist, who diagnosed her with benign myoclonic seizures.  It's a benign form of epilepsy that goes away on its own, usually by the age of 1.  My daughter is 8 months and already starting to do better - I haven't seen hardly any spasms lately.  If you want to look at video of her spasms, go to YouTube and search "Maddie's muscle spasms".  The neurologist diagnosed her after looking at this video.  Try not to worry too much and good luck!

[MsMummy]

Thank you Jazzcats. I took my son to the doctor today and showed him our video.  He said it is myoclonic jerks but has referred me to a pediatrician (I live in the UK and it is standard to see a GP rather than a pediatrician). Hopefully the pediatrician can give a better diagonisis but typical of the NHS I will have to wait for an appointment.

My sons seizures are less severe than Maddies but very similar.  Maddie is a cutie!  All the best.

[Akbari]

I'm not sure, but it seems like a myoclunus I think you need to visit a neurologist and firstly take an EEG.

[concernedmom77]

My 9month old daughter has been having frequent involuntary jerks in her legs.Over the month it has become more frequent in the day. She is breastfeed and solids have been introduced more often such as 4oz of oatmeal for breakfast, but bfmilk is still the dominant source. Anyone experience the same and is it normal?

[lockie86]

Our daughter had strange arm 'spasms' from the age of six months onwards, and we were extremely concerned.

She would lock her arm in an outstretched position and do an alarmed expression during these 'spasms', which lasted for a good few seconds.

Sometimes she would do it repeatedly, many times over a few minutes.

As first time parents we'd never seen anything like this and were fearing something serious.

But after videoing her/seeing a specialist and having an EEG etc it was suggested that this was a voluntary action rather than an involuntary spasm. Basically our daughter exploring her body, stretching her arm out as far as it would go to feel whatever sensation it was giving her.

A good sign that it was voluntary rather than involuntary was that we could distract her from it - calling her name loudly mid-'spasm' would mostly stop her doing it immediately.

And in the end she stopped doing it herself - she's now over 16 months and hasn't done it at all since she turned one.

It was 'just a phase of experimentation' and of course we're super thankful for that, cos it was very scary for a while.

Anyway, just thought we'd add what happened to us, cos this forum was one of the only places where we found people who'd experienced similar things to us at a very stressful time.

[tmacd_33]

This site was very helpful. Thank you for your input. My healthy 7 mos. old son has been having full body spasms that come in clusters of 7-10 at a time a few hours apart. They started Thursday morning and after showing a friend at church what he was doing that night she agreed that it didn't look quite right and she recommended that I look on the internet when I got home. After looking at this site and a few others I found a site that said you should call your doctor right away if your child had these symptoms. Since it was after 10 pm I spoke to the consulting nurse and she was very concerned  that he might be having seizures and she told us to go to the ER at Children's Hospital right away. The doctor was baffled by his symptoms but he said the fact that our son was able to stay happy, awake and active before, during and after his spasms was a very good sign. Over the weekend we video taped our son's spasms and we returned to Children's Tuesday for an EEG and an appointment with the neurologist. The EEG results were good and the neurologist said it was definitely not seizures or Infantile Spasms. They said it is just myoclonus which is probably being caused by a immature nervous system which he should outgrow and is nothing to worry about. They were very grateful that we brought in the video and they requested a copy. If I can get it up on youtube I will post a link.

What I learned from this experience:

If your baby has these symptoms I would urge you call your doctor and to get your baby to an ER at a Children's Hospital right away as these can be symptoms of a much more serious condition. In some cases delay in treatment can lead to brain damage. Have someone else drive you there so you can watch your baby and be prepared to have the driver pull over if your baby goes into a seizure so you can get your baby out of the car seat and put them on their side in case they vomit and so the driver can call 911. (A friend of mine that has a baby with frequent seizures just has her older daughter flip the car seat upside down, I don't know if the doctors would be okay with this or not.)

Try to get a video of your baby's symptoms because if your baby in like mine they will only have spasms when the doctor is out of the room.

Ask about having an EEG and seeing a neurologist. I'm glad we did because now we can put all our fears to rest.  

Follow up with your pediatrician. I felt a little silly keeping our follow up appointment with the pediatrician today since we now know for sure that our baby is okay but I figured that it was good to keep him in the loop. While I was there I mentioned that when they did our baby's blood work at the ER they found that our baby's iron level was a little low. The pediatrician ordered another blood test and found that he is anemic and prescribed an iron supplement.

Try to get everyone you can praying for your baby. I am so grateful for the many people that were praying for us. When people started praying his symptoms started going away and we were more at peace.

And of course always remember that the internet can be helpful but it should never replace the advice of your doctor.

[Renata3032]

Hi All, my bay is having the same issue and I am so concerned that I want to go to the hospital right now. I am wondering if this has nothing to do with the shots because my baby just had the hepatites B and polio on Tuesday and after two day he started having this thing. Please, someone can help me?

[jennlynn1988]

this is crazy...i just got on here to look up information on some actions my 6 month old daughter has been doing in the past few weeks. she takes her head and pulls it into her chest..holds her breath..tightens up her fist and pulls her arms behind her head as if she is getting really mad. i told her peds about it and she was concerned that maybe it was side effects from the zantac she was put on because of her reflux. there have been no reported side effects so the next thing she was thinking was muscle spasms. when i saw all the related stories of the same thing my daughter is doing..i was none the less shocked. what causes things like this? i still havent had any answers from her doctor. im just glad that theres others out there even though its a situation that we cant figure out...i feel better knowing my daughter isnt the only one but i was really worried. i had a perfect pregnancy and she is a wonderful and happy baby all the time..i just want answeres to what it is that is causing her to do these "twitches".