Hot poker in head and muscle spasm all night?

[TinaMarieTX]

Last night was just horrible! At about 8p, I bent over to get a cutting board from the lower cabinet and had a feeling in the back right part of my head that felt like someone had literally stabbed me with a burning hot poker. I let out a scream, everything went black, and I grabbed the counter so I wouldn't fall as my husband caught the cutting board. (so glad that thing didn't land on my toe!) After wards, it felt like hot liquid was trickling down from that area, my heat started thumping, and I got really nauseous. I've had this pain off and on since the beginning of August, and I've noticed that it happens mostly when I bend over, shake my hair out of my face, or move my head suddenly. Years ago I would get something similar in my neck if I moved wrong and was told it is just a pinched nerve. Right after that my chest started feeling really heavy, my back, neck and head were really hurting, and I was very nauseous.

A few hours later I started having muscle spasms in my legs, chest, and abdomen. My neck and back and head hurt all night. My stomach seemed to me twitching and spasming. It kept me up all night and my stomach would make weird gurggling noises as it spasmed. The phenergan I took didn't help with the nausea and it usually works really great for me.  My legs were buzzing and itchy and driving me crazy. It lasted for 7 hours.

Any thoughts on this? Is the hot poker pain just a pinched nerve? Can it make muscles spasm too? Is there anything I can do to make the spasming stop?

[natalie_jayne]

hi TM,
I just had a terrible incident of 'hot poker in head' when I turned my head to hand a curtain on a rail - and I see people have suggested to you it may be heart related - and bizarrely I too have had chest pains but just had an ECG that was normal. I'm curious, have you gotten to the bottom of your hot poker
:)
all the best,
Natalie

[cainer]

just shareing!!  i  get sharp stabbing pains in head, i heard it was ms related?

[Shiela747]

Did you find the cause of your problems? What did you find out?

[TinaMarieTX]

It DOES feel like electrical shocks at times! Sometimes the pains feel like electrical shocks, sometimes hot pokers, sometimes squeezing, and sometimes pins and needles. I've been up all night tonight with this annoying feeling between two of my left toes that I can only describe as a feeling like bugs are crawling between my toes. I know there is nothing there, but I keep pulling my sock off and rubbing between my toes, and now I've rubbed it raw.

[Deb61]

I did the same thing because moving at all made things worse.  Does is feel like electrical shocks?  I had several of these horrible shocks every minute.  Then it would go away for a couple of minutes only to return again.  Some of the shocks, like you mentioned, were so bad that it made my head pop like someone had stabbed me.  This was some of the worse pain associated with MS that I've ever had.

I realized that I spelled the condition wrong above.  The problem is trigeminal neuralgia.

I will get muscle spasms and spasticity when my body percieves something as stress or painful.  Having these painful attacks makes everything in my body go crazy.  I can't control it.  I will even get esophageal spasms as well when I'm not even eating because of pain.  My mind says, "Stop it--you're only making yourself feel worse."  But my body goes ahead and does it anyway.  

I hope you find some relief, soon.

[TinaMarieTX]

Thank you Deb. I will look up TN and see what it says. My doctor knows about it. He just thinks it's a stress headache. I told the cardiologist about it as well while I was in the CDU and he said the same thing. I thought a stress headahce was a throbbing in the temples, not what I get. I'm just really nervous about having it again and made my neck more sore from not moving my head today.

[Deb61]

The pain in the head sounds exactly like the pain I've experienced during the last several weeks which has thankfully gone away.  Look up trimengial neuralgia and see if that fits the discription of the pain you're having.  I've called my neurologist to find out what it is.  I don't know if it's TN or not, but others have suggested that it could be.  The pain from TN has been referred to as "suicide" pain because of how horrible it is.  The other pain that you described may be a separate altogether from the head pain.  Have you called your doctor?

Deb

[TinaMarieTX]

Also, my bp is always low. It usually stays around 90/60, although it was down to 70/49 at the hospital and was 85/53 when I was discharged. I believe this contributes to me feeling dizzy and spacy.

[TinaMarieTX]

Lulu, that is why my husband took me to the ER last Thursday evening. They admitted me in the CDU for two days doing a complete cardio work-up and my heart is healthy.

Several ECG's - all normal
48 Holter monitoring - normal
Echiocardiogram - normal
Stress Test - normal
CT Scan with contrast - normal
Blood work - normal

My family doctor called in a cardiologist. The cardiologist said he felt it was costochondroitus (sp?), pluerisy (which I've had before...it is NOT pluerisy) or possibly from my GERD and wants me to follow up with gastro (I think) Our family doc wants me to follow up with an Internist. When I asked them both about my muscle spasms, pins and needles, etc... they both said stress related.

I'm feeling pretty out of it today, tired, frustrated, and confused and just want to go to bed and stay there and not get up. At least I havn't put my socks on my hands today or forgotten how to use my remote control again...knock on wood.

[Lulu54]

TM- the first thought the comes to me is heart!  Have you been evaluated by a cardiologist?  I know you are young, but young women have heart blockages/aneurisms/attacks/angina/arrythmias, etc.  just like older women and men.  

The  change of position, and the nausea makes me think of heart,  along with the back pain.

A complete cardio workup should be in your near future - please don't put it off.

Then if you can take cardio issues off the table you can go back to looking at other causes.  

be well,

Lulu

Heart attack survivor, age 54

[TinaMarieTX]

I forgot to say...  I have arthritis and my arthritis pain is worse in the a.m., but gets better throughout the day if I'm more active. The squeezing chest pain I have, hot poker pains, muscle spasms and numbness and tingling seems to always get worse in the evening if I've been more active during the day. So now I'm struggling with whether I want to be more active and get of the arthritis pain, or relax in the recliner so I won't have the other problems :(  Just feeling really frustrated right now.