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.

[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]

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]

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.

[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?

[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?

[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.