Twitching in sleep

[cheyannrenee]

I;m fifteen years of age. I been diagnosed with anxiety disorder, depression, and they gave me medication to sleep known as Seroquel. Every time I take my prescribed sleeping medication I keep waking up, I am having a sleeping issue that is involving twitching, hard to fall asleep, to stay asleep, and I would call/text people while sleeping. My other symptoms are cold sweat, headaches, nausea. I haven't been eating from Friday October 8th,2010 and it is Tuesday, October 12th,2010. It is a stressful time for me. I have been twitching before before the major stress has built on. Also, I have a hard, painful lump just above my jaw line under my ear. It is hurting so bad I have headaches. I just want to know, What am I going through? Is it serious? and I can't find out what it is, everything I read are not what I'm going through. I just want to have a satisfaction, a relief, I'm worried about my health.

[cheyannrenee]

Thank you so much, this helped me out more than you know. Thank you for taking your time to help me, I greatly appreciate it. Hopefully, I can see the doctors asap.

[Dr Rajput]

Hi, welcome to the forum, currently you are on seroquel (quitiapine) which is a atypical anti psychotic. The twitching you are experiencing is may be side effect of the drug. These symptoms are known Extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS): May cause abnormal twitching or movements.  The chances of such adverse effect are higher with increased doses and younger patients.

The other causes of twitching are peripheral neuropathies, vitamin and minerals deficiencies, lumbosacral radiculopathy, spinal stenosis, excess caffeine intake, hypoglycemia, and hypothyroidism. Anxiety disorder is associated with cold sweats. I suggest you to consult psychiatrist for dose changes and as well as use of central anti cholinergics.  

Jaw pain and painful lump can be due to infection of salivary gland like parotitis, infected foci from the ear infection. If the pain won’t subside or there is progressive worsening then you may need to undergo x-ray of jaw, serum alkaline phosphatase and calcitonin level, radio imaging of the jaw joint will help to evaluate. I suggest you to consult ENT specialist for proper antibiotic therapy, to check infection, with painkillers. Take care and regards.