I have been on benzodiazapines since 1993. I told the neurologist this but she said nothing. I tend to doubt her knowledge of her practice. She wouldn't even suggest what you have or suggest any tests of any kind. I was ripped off pretty well in a joke of a visit, in my own personal opinion.
Thanks so much, Dr. Sharma. I will try to convince the neurologist to look into all of this.
Hi there. There are certain causes responsible for muscle twitching like diet deficiency, drug overdose, and side effects of diuretics, corticosteroids, estrogens, exercise, benign twitches, and nervous system conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, muscle dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy and myopathy. Your neurologist needs to look into these conditions one by one. The other possible cause could be multiple sclerosis and is a diagnosis of exclusion. The symptoms of multiple sclerosis are loss of balance, muscle spasms, numbness in any area, problems with walking and coordination, tremors in one or more arms and legs. Bowel and bladder symptoms include frequency of micturition, urine leakage, eye symptoms like double vision uncontrollable rapid eye movements, facial pain, painful muscle spasms, tingling, burning in arms or legs, depression, dizziness, hearing loss, fatigue etc. The treatment is essentially limited to symptomatic therapy so the course of action would not change much whether MS has been diagnosed or not. Apart from clinical neurological examination, MRI shows MS as paler areas of demyelination, two different episodes of demyelination separated by one month in at least two different brain locations. Spinal tap is done and CSF electrophoresis reveals oligoclonal bands suggestive of immune activity, which is suggestive but not diagnostic of MS. Demyelinating neurons, transmit nerve signals slower than non-demyelinated ones and can be detected with EP tests. These are visual evoked potentials, brain stem auditory evoked response, and somatosensory evoked potential. Slower nerve responses in any one of these is not confirmatory of MS but can be used to complement diagnosis along with a neurological examination, medical history and an MRI in addition, a spinal tap. Therefore, it would be prudent to consult your neurologist with these concerns. Causes of strokes can be investigated like high blood pressure and high cholesterol along with brain hemorrhage. Take care
Most of our run of the mill neuros around here don't seem to be well trained in problems like this. They are mostly big ticket items like stroke, painful neuropathy, etc. They also don't seem well trained to deal with fasciculations. They bandage the symptoms with high powered dope, you suffer more symptoms with side effects, and it may or may not even help. They are imprisoned in this narrow little box of textbook training, which doesn't include more unusual problems such as this.
I think I'm ready for that holistic Dr. near the Metroplex. His nurse once told me after learning my symptoms, that it sounds like I have metal toxicity. I would believe that.