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tremors during sleep
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.
twenty miles a day. Married with two grown children. My job is very stress-free and very enjoyable. Any ideas? Thank you very much.
Actually just started. As I read through the list of ingredients, they are not the most absorbable form of things but can't hurt to try.
I also ponder why the morning seem to be worse - what changes towards morning? Cortisol for sure. If I remember correctly from getting labs done testosterone and zinc are time sensitive - higher in the morning (I believe - going off memory). For zinc for sure if the serum level is higher in the morning then it has to come from somewhere since zinc cannot be made in the body - so I have to assume there's some movement from intercelluar to serum in the morning.
I imagine there's a fairly long list of things that change like that. For the purpose of this line of thinking it makes sense to me that something is more in balance than it used to be when I got tremors throughout the night. So as things get more "normalized" I'm only getting the tremors during the morning when "things" (whatever that may be) are adjusting within the body to start a new day.
I also ponder why the morning seem to be worse - what changes towards morning? Cortisol for sure. If I remember correctly from getting labs done testosterone and zinc are time sensitive - higher in the morning (I believe - going off memory). For zinc for sure if the serum level is higher in the morning then it has to come from somewhere since zinc cannot be made in the body - so I have to assume there's some movement from intercelluar to serum in the morning.
I imagine there's a fairly long list of things that change like that. For the purpose of this line of thinking it makes sense to me that something is more in balance than it used to be when I got tremors throughout the night. So as things get more "normalized" I'm only getting the tremors during the morning when "things" (whatever that may be) are adjusting within the body to start a new day.
3 Comments
It might have to do with what phase of sleep we're in. Towards the morning, we no longer cycle into deep sleep, but instead cycle between the lighter NREM stages and REM with brief awakenings. So maybe the vibrations are happening all night, but we only experience them during the lighter stages of sleep. I'm guessing that we feel the worst when we wake from REM sleep.
Or maybe we feel the worst when we wake from stage 4 NREM sleep? But yeah, I had also considered the testosterone, cortisol, HGH levels throughout the night. I haven't reached any conclusions though.
The other thing that occurred to me is that Toby and I (and you when things were bad) experienced vibrations when drifting off during a nap. So this would tend to support my "phase of sleep" theory.
He told me he's a "gut guy" when we 1st stated talking and asked some questions about the GI stuff. Since my GI is good at this point we didn't really spend any time on that.
I did some research on dystonia and found some stuff on paroxysmal nocturnal dystonia - that's the closest match from what I can tell. There's not a ton of info on it and based on what I read I have more questions than anything else.
A few years ago when things were at their worst I took a video of myself sleeping and although I felt like I was shaking all over the place when I woke up none of that showed up in the video. I was sleeping peacefully then woke up and although I had intense tremors it wasn't something that was visible on video. I was looking for sleep apnea or anything weird in my sleep that would cause the tremors. Nothing - just peaceful looking sleep.
From what I can tell dystonia is a different type of movement - something that would be visible. Same with nocturnal epilepsy - although there are other reasons why I don't think that is a good fit.
Mitochondria - I haven't had a chance to look into this too much but from what I've seen so far this looks to be an involved topic. This is a completely new area of investigation for me. A GI connection would be very interesting.
All of the above being said, I'm still somewhat stuck on electrolytes. I know it seems like I'm beating a dead horse (and then some) but as I look back in time it seems to fit. And that's the one thing I've really focused on for the last 4 months or so and my tremors are minimal at this point - just a bit in the morning. I cook almost everything from scratch so I need to make a conscious effort to get enough sodium. And several times over the last couple of months my tremors have gotten a bit worse and I realize I was not getting much sodium for the few days prior. I'm almost 100% certain it's not a sodium issue but I suspect its throwing other things out of whack. When I focus on getting more sodium things go back to my "new normal" - minimal tremors in the morning.
I did some research on dystonia and found some stuff on paroxysmal nocturnal dystonia - that's the closest match from what I can tell. There's not a ton of info on it and based on what I read I have more questions than anything else.
A few years ago when things were at their worst I took a video of myself sleeping and although I felt like I was shaking all over the place when I woke up none of that showed up in the video. I was sleeping peacefully then woke up and although I had intense tremors it wasn't something that was visible on video. I was looking for sleep apnea or anything weird in my sleep that would cause the tremors. Nothing - just peaceful looking sleep.
From what I can tell dystonia is a different type of movement - something that would be visible. Same with nocturnal epilepsy - although there are other reasons why I don't think that is a good fit.
Mitochondria - I haven't had a chance to look into this too much but from what I've seen so far this looks to be an involved topic. This is a completely new area of investigation for me. A GI connection would be very interesting.
All of the above being said, I'm still somewhat stuck on electrolytes. I know it seems like I'm beating a dead horse (and then some) but as I look back in time it seems to fit. And that's the one thing I've really focused on for the last 4 months or so and my tremors are minimal at this point - just a bit in the morning. I cook almost everything from scratch so I need to make a conscious effort to get enough sodium. And several times over the last couple of months my tremors have gotten a bit worse and I realize I was not getting much sodium for the few days prior. I'm almost 100% certain it's not a sodium issue but I suspect its throwing other things out of whack. When I focus on getting more sodium things go back to my "new normal" - minimal tremors in the morning.
1 Comments
Have you tried drinking water with electrolytes? Like from one of those concentrates such as eLyte?
I haven't gone too far down this path. However, some thoughts:
My problems started after a really bad reaction to Cipro. Cipro is in a class of antibiotics (fluoroquinolones) that are known to cause mitochondrial damage. Both a naturopath that I had seen a while back and the functional doc I'm seeing believe that I have some level of mitochondrial dysfunction. I'm taking a couple of supplements for that although I'm not sure they've helped all that much. They may have helped with my fatigue, but not the sleep vibrations.
I've been thinking for a while that the vibrations are some sort of myoclonus and I know that myoclonus and dystonia are related (not quite sure how though). Why do I think this is a form of myoclonus? Because I've also been suffering from myoclonic jerks during sleep and at sleep onset. I had this pretty bad a couple of years ago when all of this started. My body would jerk just as I drifted off to sleep and wake me back up. I attributed this at the time to clonazepam withdrawal (and that still may be the case). This went away after a while. Lately, I'm pretty sure that I've started having some myoclonus of the neck or tongue or throat or soft palate or diaphragm (a hiccup is myoclonus of the diaphragm) or all of the above. This also happens just as I drift off to sleep and *may* be happening during sleep. This (as opposed to the vibrations) might be what wakes me up. It would also explain why this sometimes feels like I haven't been breathing correctly when I wake up. And it might explain why the vibrations feel like they're coming from my diaphragm or in your case, from your neck or head. I couldn't put my finger on this until recently when I actually was in light enough sleep to experience it. There were a couple of times when my mouth actually closed suddenly and involuntarily. This only happens when I'm about to drift off to sleep.
I did some Googling and found out about something called "palatal myoclonus" I'll let you Google it for yourself. This seems much more severe and constant than what I have, but seemingly related. Could be due to many things. They list MS, infections, neurological damage as possibilities. I've also found a few references correlating palatal myoclonus with Lyme.
Anyway, that's just the dystonia angle. I'm not sure about the mitochondria angle. From the little I understand about mitochondrial dysfunction, it could cause a host of symptoms.
What does this doctor think about the gut dysbiosis angle? This is something you and I seem to have in common in that we both may have/had possibly pathogenic bacteria in our gut. This can interfere with the production of neurotransmitters (including GABA) and, I believe, can also cause mitochondrial dysfunction.
-b
My problems started after a really bad reaction to Cipro. Cipro is in a class of antibiotics (fluoroquinolones) that are known to cause mitochondrial damage. Both a naturopath that I had seen a while back and the functional doc I'm seeing believe that I have some level of mitochondrial dysfunction. I'm taking a couple of supplements for that although I'm not sure they've helped all that much. They may have helped with my fatigue, but not the sleep vibrations.
I've been thinking for a while that the vibrations are some sort of myoclonus and I know that myoclonus and dystonia are related (not quite sure how though). Why do I think this is a form of myoclonus? Because I've also been suffering from myoclonic jerks during sleep and at sleep onset. I had this pretty bad a couple of years ago when all of this started. My body would jerk just as I drifted off to sleep and wake me back up. I attributed this at the time to clonazepam withdrawal (and that still may be the case). This went away after a while. Lately, I'm pretty sure that I've started having some myoclonus of the neck or tongue or throat or soft palate or diaphragm (a hiccup is myoclonus of the diaphragm) or all of the above. This also happens just as I drift off to sleep and *may* be happening during sleep. This (as opposed to the vibrations) might be what wakes me up. It would also explain why this sometimes feels like I haven't been breathing correctly when I wake up. And it might explain why the vibrations feel like they're coming from my diaphragm or in your case, from your neck or head. I couldn't put my finger on this until recently when I actually was in light enough sleep to experience it. There were a couple of times when my mouth actually closed suddenly and involuntarily. This only happens when I'm about to drift off to sleep.
I did some Googling and found out about something called "palatal myoclonus" I'll let you Google it for yourself. This seems much more severe and constant than what I have, but seemingly related. Could be due to many things. They list MS, infections, neurological damage as possibilities. I've also found a few references correlating palatal myoclonus with Lyme.
Anyway, that's just the dystonia angle. I'm not sure about the mitochondria angle. From the little I understand about mitochondrial dysfunction, it could cause a host of symptoms.
What does this doctor think about the gut dysbiosis angle? This is something you and I seem to have in common in that we both may have/had possibly pathogenic bacteria in our gut. This can interfere with the production of neurotransmitters (including GABA) and, I believe, can also cause mitochondrial dysfunction.
-b
Quick update - I got my results on the RBC magnesium & zinc. The magnesium is 4.8 mg/dl with a reference range of 4.0 - 6.4. Zinc was 10.3 with a range of 9.0 - 14.4.
Saw the dr today and he felt that both were fine and in his opinion this isn't the problem. Not sure if I agree or disagree - probably a bit of both actually.
He wants me to do some research on dystonia and mitochondria as it relates to tremor. I haven't had a chance to do that yet. Anyone go down either of these paths?
Saw the dr today and he felt that both were fine and in his opinion this isn't the problem. Not sure if I agree or disagree - probably a bit of both actually.
He wants me to do some research on dystonia and mitochondria as it relates to tremor. I haven't had a chance to do that yet. Anyone go down either of these paths?
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