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Have you experienced twitching feeling in back, neck or arms.

I am in the process of being "worked up" for muscle weakness in my arms. MRI is clear so far, YAY. But I still have these strange sensations of twitching or small jerking in my back, neck and arms. I notice most in the early morning when I am waking up. Sometime when my alarm goes off, I find it difficult to "control" my arms and hands to get to my alarm to turn it off.

Have any of you experienced similar sensations?
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987762 tn?1671273328
COMMUNITY LEADER
I never know what to say when someone is diagnosed with a medical condition other than MS, so i'll give you a gentle hug and hope your neuro is MG informed!

https://brainfoundation.org.au/disorders/myasthenia-gravis/

btw I could feel a weird vibration a year or so before it became visible to others which it is all the time now, but it was a completely accidental discovery that i could make this weird feeling become visible after I gently placed a lottery ticket between my lips whilst i was cleaning the bedside table and to my shock the ticket was moving to match the weird vibration feeling i had.

I later found out the paper between the lips was one of the very old tremor tests, so you'll get why i will never ignore weird vibration feelings with muscle weakness cause they often go together. Unfortunately it's very very late over my side of the globe but if you would like me to provide you with some more information i will get back to you tomorrow, just let me know and i'll give you what i have on the topic.

HUGS........JJ    
Helpful - 0
5 Comments
Supermum,

Your insight is utterly invaluable!
Thanks very much for the brainfoundation.org link regarding MG.
I'd never even heard of myasthenia gravis, and the initial description atop the article-
"The distinctive feature of myasthenia gravis is muscle weakness that increases during periods of activity and improves after rest."
Encapsulates many of my symptoms in a nutshell.
Which leads me to a "knee-jerk" (pun possibly intended) question:

In your opinion, do MS & MG often just go "hand-in-hand," or are they basically one in the same?

I know that everyone's MS is different, so things can get muddled, but...

Thoughts?
I honestly do value, and am sincerely thankful for, your thoughtful, perceptive savvy.

As an almost entirely comic aside, with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek...
Your frequent use of "hug" in a conversation on MS made me smile, and get happily triggered.*
;-D

Hope that, all things considered, everything is going fantastically in OZ!
(One of my favorite YouTubers just moved to Melbourne, so anything "Aussie" makes me grin.)
I'd attach a picture of a kangaroo with a notched ear, but the site doesn't allow for attachments.
Likely a wise choice!

All the best,
MS_Phil

*- I have to smile and laugh, so I don't mope and cry.
Have you ever heard of, or experienced, dizzyingly fast mood swings, sometimes referred to as "pseudobulbar affect," also hilariously known as "emotional incontinence"?
Sometimes I'll start crying over something trivially banal, (a simple passing thought like - "oh hey, remember that song 'someone like you' by Adele?) then the situational ridiculousness makes me start to laugh, and then the compounded silliness makes my cry again, then the continued cluster-fluff makes me laugh AGAIN.
When I'm merely shopping for groceries, and apparently out of nowhere, I start crying, then audibly laughing, cry some more, and then laugh again, in the space of 20 seconds, the stunned looks of shock and horror that I notice make me feel...
Awkward to say the least.

#MS
:D

You asked because of the MG description "The distinctive feature of myasthenia gravis is muscle weakness that increases during periods of activity and improves after rest."
if "In your opinion, do MS & MG often just go "hand-in-hand," or are they basically one in the same? "

Answer: Technically MS doesn't make you immune to having other medical conditions too, unfortunately people who already have one autoimmune disease have a greater risk of developing another one, keep in mind that's a 'greater risk' not inevitability but MS and MG are completely different types of autoimmune conditions and they don't often go together....

If anything, like many other types of autoimmune conditions MG can cause some similar symptoms and clinical signs as MS but MG is specifically a 'neuromuscular' disease. MG symptoms are specifically caused by the immune systems antibodies that attack things like bacteria and viruses also targeting and destroying many of the ? receptors in the actual muscles, the damaged muscle cells are why those affected muscles become weak and fatigued.

MS on the other hand is also caused by the immune systems defence system attacking what it shouldn't but with MS it's specifically attacking the myelin sheath that surrounds nerve fibers in the brain, optic nerves and spinal cord, and when the protective covering (myelin sheath) sheath is damaged
by those lesions, it affects the nerve impulses getting through slow or even stop...

If i use the MS 'faulty lamp' explanation, think of MS as being more about faulty wiring and MG would be more about the light globe being defective.....

Either way when a nerve impulse isn't getting through to individual muscles the way they should be, those specific muscles loose strength and fatigue with use, the inter connected muscles are also working a lot harder trying to compensate but it still burns up a lot of energy to do x,y or z and instead of repetition strengthening, building, requiring less energy etc in those specific muscles the opposite ends up happening, the repetition increases the muscle weakness and or muscle fatigue, requires more energy etc so MG like MS becomes a balancing act of understanding how much you can do before you reach your functional limits and you need to rest.

Hope that made sense.......JJ

ps i haven't actually experienced the "pseudobulbar affect" it would definitely be discombobulating, i am someone who laughs easily, lol a lot, i basically always have been easily amused though but i honestly think it's mostly because of my outside the normal box family and working with children with disabilities and not because of lesions in my brain, lol life just is weirdly funny, well to me it is :D

    
You really ARE super, mum!  ;-)
I'm curious, are there (in your opinion, obviously) questions that I could ask or tests that I could request to inquire of my neurologist whether or not I legitimately have MG as well as MS?
He already tends to politely dismiss some of my concerns, and I don't want to paint myself into a metaphorical corner with a hypochondriac's dunce cap on.  MS is not only his speciality, but he's one of the leading MS experts in the Northwest region of the US.  So, again...  How should I broach the subject of MG to him, in your opinion?
I'm not sure why you would be even thinking you might have both, but if your neuro is as you say, one of the leading MS experts in the US and you have been dx-ed with MS, you will have already been tested for lots of different types of conditions even if your MRI's were screaming MS, part of the diagnostic process is to rule out all the alternate medical explanations so conditions like MG will most likely to have already been ruled out from your blood tests, nerve tests etc..

IF you are just curious i wouldn't recommend you use up your neurological appointment time talking about any topic that isn't of the upmost importance in improving your life quality, focus on resolving-improving your specific MS issues that would help you function better etc and reserve anything else to discussing  topic specific concerns with others in your team eg GP, MS nurse, physio, therapist, MS chapter etc

Keep in mind for you to be diagnosed with MS, the likelihood of MG or something else not being picked up in your test results is very unlikely to be true by now....i personally think you'd be much better off re-focusing your attention on what you know to be true, learn everything you can about MS and avoid getting distracted / curious/ confused / concerned by thoughts of the 'possibility' of there being something else additional to your MS going on.

I am not going to tell you it's impossible because that just isn't true but the more you understand what MS does and doesn't do you will be in a much better position to recognise something that specifically needs to be investigated further...

Hope that helps......JJ

PS if you have anymore questions i think it would be better if you start a new question thread so this one doesn't end up being high jacked to much from this threads creator :D  
What amazing advice!  :-)
I'll definitely take it, vis-à-vis the whole "refocusing" aspect, and I'll also create a new thread for any further inquiries so as not to hijack this thread any more.

You rock,
#DFTBA

MS_Phil

P.S.- DFTBA is "don't forget to be awesome," which I doubt you will.
Since you are.  Awesome.  :-D
987762 tn?1671273328
COMMUNITY LEADER
Hi and welcome,

It's not actually out side of normal to 'wake up'  whilst still partially in the REM sleep paralysis phase so your limbs feel weak or heavy and cause difficulty moving them normally. It happens because during the dream phase of sleep known as the rapid eye movement ie REM sleep phase, our skeletal muscles are naturally paralysed and it can take a little while before your brain registers it's time to move, the more awake you become the more your normal function returns.  

Muscle twitching is one of the weird issues that could be something suggestive of a disease or absolutely nothing significant at all because it commonly occurs when lactic acid accumulates in the muscles being used, dehydration, hormonal changes, nutrition imbalances, types of medications etc etc.

You don't mention if you have neurological clinical signs of muscle weakness or not, but if all your test results are normal it's 'possible' if you mostly notice the twitching in the early morning when you are waking up and the muscle twitching and weakness feeling gets better or disappears as you getting going about your day, that what's been happening is a situation specific issue related to sleep and your answers lead you in a different direction than a neurological condition like MS.  

Hope that helps.......JJ
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1 Comments
Thank you for your comments. I have been seen by Neuro and have positive test for myasthenia gravis, however.when I report the sensation of almost vibrating in my arms, neck and back he says that's not MG.

I think I should have clarified that when I feel the twitching/vibrating in the morning I am awake and not being startled from sleep by my alarm. I continue to have the sensation through the day but notice more when I am laying still.

J just a weird feeling to accompany the weakness.
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