twitching and trouble sleeping

[Kevina74]

Sorry in advance if this is long but I want to go into as much detail as possible. My problems began about nine months ago after I had a major panic attack. I should add prior to this I had no health problems at all. This panic attack seemed to come out of nowhere at the time, tho I do suffer from anxiety and there were some things that weighed heavily upon my mind. I suspect all this built up over time until eventually the damn broke.

Anyways if I wasn't feeling stressed or anxious before I certainly was after. The confusion about what was happening and the worry that it would happen again only added to the mix. This is where my body seemed to go haywire. I developed severe insomnia. Again this added to my already stressed body and about a month later the muscle twitching began. This piled on more stress as I worried it was some major disease. For awhile I was turning into a hypochondriac. I also thought I was losing too much weight. Emotionally I wasn't depressed but everything felt gray, like all the joy and happiness had been sucked out of the world. I finally decided to get myself checked out.

I've probably been to the doctors more times this year than my entire life combined. Let's see I've had blood work done (sedimentation rate, creatine kinase, complete metabolic panel, complete blood count with diff, TSH), a chest x-ray (for something unrelated), various physical exams, ohh yea and a rectal exam (fun). Everything came back normal. My blood platelets were a little low but none of the doctors seemed concerned about it. Basically they chalked it up to anxiety, they wanted to put me Zoloft but I declined and went the CBT route instead. I asked the doctor about the muscle twitching and he seemed unconcerned about it.
So fast forward to today, emotionally I'm back to my old self and I've gained some weight. I've worked on my stress and anxiety with cognitive behavioral therapy and it's helped but I still have lingering issues. I still have muscle twitches, tho it's mostly in my calves now, it feels like a crawling sensation. Occasionally my finger or toes will twitch. I also have trouble sleeping. It takes me forever to fall asleep and then I wake up early. I don't know how many hours of sleep I average a night but it's not nearly enough, certainly not 8 hours. I've never had these problems before. And last night when trying to sleep I would get these jolts in my arms or legs that would cause them to move a little and keep me awake. I should also add I feel more fatigued like I don't have the pep I used to have.

These issues might seem minor but they are frustrating to me and have a negative impact on my life. I suspect they are anxiety\stress related as they all happened after my panic attack. What ever the panic attack and following stress did it  caused my body to go haywire. The problem is I don't know how to fix things they way they were before all this started. Any advice or suggestions is appreciated. Thanks!

[Paderla Anitha, DNB]

Hello and hope you are doing well.

Your symptoms of moving your limbs in sleep could be due to a sleep disorder called Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD). They disrupt sleep and cause involuntary movements during sleep. The cause is not known. They can be diagnosed with a sleep study and medications help to control them. So, I would advise you to consult your primary care physician for further evaluation. He may then ask for a sleep study called polysomnography for further evaluation.

Hope this helped and do keep us posted.

[keppra_rager_kel]

Yeah, yours sounds perfectly normal!!  Even though I'm medicated my neurologist said its perfectly normal to have minor flinches when you're tired or stressed.  I'm assuming you have some type of sleeping issue... good luck, hope you get it figured out.  Trust me, its worth looking into.  But, life could be much worse.  Take care buddy!

[Kevina74]

Hello, I'm not sure our conditions are completely the same but thanks for replying. Those flinches, or jerks as I call them, only happen to me when I'm in bed trying to relax and I haven't had any headaches or vision problems. It's probably not a big deal since many people experience this when going to sleep, it's just I think anxiety and lack of sleep make it worse.

[keppra_rager_kel]

I am IN NO form a doctor.  But I do have JME (Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy).  Its a VERY mild form of epilepsy.  I flinched pretty badly, and it was usually in the morning when I first woke up or late at night when I was tired.  I also had headaches and felt very weak sometimes.  Went in and saw a neurologist because one day I fell out of my bed and didn't recognize my parents and felt like I couldn't even lift my arms without getting exhausted.  I had a grand Mal of course.  And those twitches were small seizures (called myoclonic jerks).  ANd alcohol, stress, and lack of sleep increases the likeliness for the jerks.  I have been flinching since I was 14.  In college (at age 19-22) they jerks got more invasive and I would be brushing my teeth and flinch and hit my toothpaste all over my face, or flinch and knock a toaster off the counter.  Then my eyes started rolling back into my head (only for a mere 8 seconds or so) and I would kinda space out for a bit, then bounce right back.  Then I had the grand mal, and they put me on Keppra (very low dosage) and I haven't had the flinches since!  Ill get one every now and then, but that's normal.  I also work out pretty hard so those are muscles flinches too.  I have found that losing weight, eating a healthy diet, and working out keeps me pretty centered.  I will tell you when I miss a pill (only has happened twice in 5 years) I can tell something's not right, but as soon as I take on, I feel better in about 15 minutes!!  Not sure if that's in my head, but it works for me.  And when I feel weird, my vision's off, and i get slightly dizzy and its hard to think (not too bad) but I get a little confused.  And my vision feels like its closing in.... and I know if I get that feeling I pop a pill, and its gone!!  So not to scare you, but if its that, its easy to fix and well regulated!  Good luck!!  I hate those flinches though, when I was in high school everyone thought it was so funny, college too and so did I... never knew it was actually a problem since I had flinched my whole life.  But I no longer have headaches or flinch!!  Its awesome.  Hope you can figure it out.