tremors during sleep

[bobito]

I'm a 60 year old men, in excellent health, except for experiencing tremors during sleep that wake me up and have difficulty going  back to sleep.  As I start to fall sleep again, I feel these "rumbleling" (tremors) around my upper body.  I immediately wake up again.  These tremors last for about 10-15 seconds after I wake up.  The first time I experienced this condition was exactly two years ago.  It lasted for about four days and it simply went away.  Except for minor incidents (by "minor" I mean I experience the tremors for about two nights and go away) with no major disruptions in my sleep patters.  Last week, however, I experienced another episode which does not seem to be going away.  The first two nights I simply could not go back to sleep at all.  My body wanted to go back to sleep, but, as I mentioned above, everytime I fell sleep the tremors woke me up.  I'm on my  9th day and there seems to be no sign of letting up. I went to see my doctor on the fourth day--He prescribed Zolpidem, which I have been taken since.  Interestingly enough, even under the influence of the sleeping pill, the tremor wake me up, but they are short-lived since I go back to sleep almost immediately.  My doctor said to take the medicine for about two weeks and essencially placed me on a "wait-and-see" mode.  My concern at this point is "how long can I possobly survived on this medicine.  Does any body "out there" know anything about this condition?  As you can immagine, it is extremely debilitating.  I'm, for my age, a very atheletic man who is the right things, no vices and bikes to work every day--About
twenty miles a day.  Married with two grown children.  My job is very stress-free and very enjoyable.  Any ideas?  Thank you very much.

[bl218]

Toby, just because the brain is not causing this doesn't mean that it's *not* a neurological issue.  And these days, what constitutes a neurological issue vs an issue with the gut seems to be debatable. The whole gut/brain connection thing is gaining lots of traction these days.  I'll be interested in hearing how the benzo you've been prescribed works for you.  It probably wouldn't hurt to at least give it a try.  At some point, we may all have to admit that (even alternative) medicine doesn't have the answer to this one and dealing with the symptoms is the best we can do.  I suspect that even if some neuro did acknowledge this problem and even if he said it was the brain causing it, and if you don't have any sort of tumor (which apparently you don't), the end result would still probably be a benzo prescription.

Mike, yes I'm doing the Genova (formerly Metametrix) GI Effects test.  Mine also showed a severe imbalance between the good and bad bacteria. Whether that's really the cause of any of my problems, who knows.  I will say though that most of my specific GI problems have gone away after some treatment with probiotics, diet change, etc.  For a while, I couldn't eat anything at all.  I'm actually scheduled to do another GI Effects test in the next few weeks. And yes, I'd be happy to hear any further thoughts you have on this.  W/r/t taurine, it's supposedly a GABA precursor which might be helpful.

The other thing I'm pursuing is mercury toxicity.  I think I mentioned this way back in this thread somewhere. This is yet another controversial area.  Mercury toxicity is known to cause numerous issues affecting the GI and nervous system. But conventional and complementary medicine differ on what is considered toxic levels and on the appropriate course of treatment.  My mercury levels as measured on 3 different tests were pretty high.  Not stratospheric, but high enough that my functional doc felt that it should definitely be treated. I've done two rounds of chelation therapy.  The first brought my level from 28 to 17.  But after the second round it went back up to 21 which the doc said was effectively "no change."  According to the tests, half of the mercury in my body came from ingesting it (I used to eat a LOT of sushi) and the other half is probably from amalgam dental fillings.  The dental filling thing is yet another controversial area.  So my functional doc suggested that I have my amalgam fillings removed and then try another round of chelation therapy.  And so this morning I have an appointment with a "biological dentist" to talk about having that done.

There was a time when I would have thought that all of this was complete voodoo medicine. But as we've all agreed, conventional medicine doesn't have the answers to our particular problem.  (I still go to my GP for a yearly physical, but I don't discuss this problem with him anymore.) And through lots of research (most of which I bet you've done as well), I believe that conventional medicine doesn't have the right answer to many problems.  So is the whole gut/brain thing real?  Are amalgam fillings really poisoning us?  It's hard to say, but I'm more than willing to explore these avenues at this point.  And for me, in the background is also the possibility that this is Lyme.  Or maybe I have toxic mold in the house.  All areas that are controversial and difficult to diagnose and treat.

Let's keep the discussion going guys.  Thanks everyone for spending time on this.

-b

[toby1101]

I went to neuro today for a MRE. The neuro said that it is impossible for the brain to cause tremore while sleeping. I told him that I don't know for sure that I have tremors because I am sleeping. He sent me home with a prescription. I cannot read the name. Similar to Lorazepam.

He kept asking for Mayo's diagnosis. He couldn't accept that they didn't have one.

I will give the pills a try but know it's not the answer.

[mikezzxxyy]

Taurine rang a bell when I was replying last night and I looked through my stash of supplements and sure enough at one point in time I purchased a bottle but never opened it.  It's been a while so I don't remember why I didn't give it a try - must have gotten sidetracked with something else.  I'm currently having pretty good success with what I'm doing so I'm going to stick with that until things settle out and then go from there.

"Poop test" - are you doing Metametrix?  That's the one that seemed to provide the most "valuable" info for me.  I have "valuable" in quotes because I'm not sure that the info itself has a lot of value - it's detailed but I just don't know if what it's measuring is of true value.  I did a conference call with them via my dr to better understand what I was looking at and still have mixed feelings.  I was low in the "good" and relatively high in yeast/fungi but the type of yeast/fungi was unknown so "possibly/probably ingested" was the determination on that.  However it was the only thing I had to go on so I followed the candida protocol for quite a while and tried nystatin, fluconazole, garlic, caprylic acid, etc along with the essentially low carb diet.  Those were some tough times with lots of up and downs for no apparent reason.  Let me know if this is the path you're going down and I'd be happy to share more info/thoughts.  Ultimately Braggs seemed to do the trick for me but other things helped to varying degrees. It was a long process though.

Benzos or similar - I chose not to go that route.  I just fundamentally didn't agree with the drs that this was an anxiety issue and I didn't want to get sidetracked trying to chase something that at every level felt wrong to me.  Plus I've done a lot of Internet research and reading threads like this one convinced me that the answer wasn't going to be found in an MRI, anti-anxitey meds, etc.  Between the GI fun being the beginning of this and following everyone's experiences in trying to address the tremors (I'd like to thank Toby in particular for his detailed info) I was/am convinced that the answer for me is an imbalance caused by absorption issues.  

After reading about Toby's Mayo visits I was essentially 100% convinced that the answer has to be in areas where conventional medicine isn't looking.  If a couple of visits to the Mayo Clinic didn't uncover the cause then what are the chances a dr around here would find something that Mayo missed - slim to none. So that why I chose to go the naturopath route but even that has been disappointing.  

Following that same logic, I do believe that we are to one degree or another dealing with the same thing and I suspect/hope that when someone finds the answer that it will help everyone who is dealing with this.

[bl218]

GABA is a really good guess, but difficult to treat.  One class of people who seem to get the vibrations a lot are those who are going through benzodiazepine withdrawal (you've probably done all the same Google searches I have). Use of benzos is known to shut down the GABA receptors causing all sorts of neurological problems.  Unfortunately, use of GABA is controversial because it also might shut down GABA receptors and many docs say that GABA supplements don't cross the blood-brain barrier anyway.  I suspect that benzodiazepines would be helpful in reducing or eliminating the vibrations. But I've used them before (prior to the whole vibration thing), got addicted, and had a tough time weaning off of them.  Having said that, I still might have to consider using them judiciously to get back some quality of life.  It's all a trade-off.

I'll give the Braggs another try.  I have another "poop test" coming up to see if there's been any improvement in my gut by that measure.

-b

[mikezzxxyy]

I'm very curious to see if the magnesium taurate makes a difference.  Back before I gave up on drs for all of this one naturopath was thinking along the lines of GABA.  He had me try Zen by Allergy Research Group but unfortunately it didn't work.  

I've considered exercise as a possible trigger but have more or less dismissed that.  I was paying attention to that possible connection for a while but couldn't make any type of correlation.  

GI - that took me a long time to get straightened out.  I think the most effective thing was 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (Braggs) in water 2 or 3 times/day.  Unpleasant at best...but seemingly effective.  In general I never found probiotics to be terribly effective - I'd say the best was VSL 3 but even that didn't seem to do an awful lot.  Lots of trial and error.

[bl218]

Just an update.  I've been trying a liquid mag for a few days. This is Mother Earth Minerals Liquid Magnesium.  I haven't noticed any difference.  In fact, the Mag Glycinate might have been a bit better at helping me sleep. I was running low on Mag Glycinate and the two stores I went to were out.  However one store had Mag Taurate.  Taurine is a GABA precursor and supposedly has a calming effect. So I bought some of that and started with it last night.  Too early to tell whether it's better than anything else, but I'll report back in a few days.

-b