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foot vibration

Not sure where to post this. A few days ago I had a sensation of the floor vibrating under one foot. Since then I have realized it is my foot. It is felt in bloth feet, one at a time. Never both at the same time. I feel it when I am standing r walking. It is like an intermittent buzzing sensation. It comes in short bursts on after the other then stops. It will happen when walking and I will feel it with every third or fourth step. What could be the cause? I am taking no medications, only slightly over weight and am a 47 yr. old female in good health.


This discussion is related to faint vibration or 'humming' sensation.
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Avatar universal
I am a healthy 53yr old woman with a 35yr old leg injury/issue, but don't believe this to be a factor since the vibration occurs mainly in my "good-leg's" foot.  
I have been having the same symptoms in my right and sometimes left foot, Not specifically toward the heel or toes, but more generally in the middle of the bottom of my foot, around toward the outer-right side.  
Like everyone else, thought I was going crazy.  Then, thought perhaps my foot fell asleep and was trying to awaken, even though I was not sitting in a position for this to occur.  
After reading everyone's comments, for me, I'm leaning toward the dehydration/mineral/vitamin deficiency.
I live in Southern AZ and the temps have been into the 100's day after day.  I also perform some work in the field (outside) in these temps, for extended periods of time.  Although I drink plenty of water, I don't consume enough nutritional vitamin packed foods to compensate for the fluid loss from sweating profusely while out there each day.
Even though some have pin-pointed shoes/sneakers etc as the culprits, I don't believe this could really be the cause.
I hope everyone finds their own personal cure for this annoying symptom!
GOOD LUCK!
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Avatar universal
Hi all. Just wanted to share my experience in case it may be helpful to someone. Just for the record I am 34, female and in great health. About two weeks ago I had an acute muscle twitch in my lower left lip that was visible if you looked at my face. Every few seconds or so my lip muscle would twitch outward as if there was a little poltergeist trying to kick his way out. As I had no other symptoms I went to bed hoping it would be gone in the morning, and so when I woke up at 5am and realised it was still there I started to panic. I went to the emergency room a few hours later and of course the twitching stopped the minute I sat down to register. The doctor ruled out any signs of a stroke and sent me to a neurologist who also didn't know what to say, as I passed all his muscle and reflex tests. We ran some blood tests to check my electrolytes and he said to come back in 2 weeks if no other symptoms appeared. Meanwhile, that same week, I noticed that my left heel started to buzz/vibrate while I was lying on the couch. Like many on this forum the vibrations would come and go in intervals. No pain, very localised, but I was so aware of them happening that I couldn't help but lose sleep over it. Doctor Google seemed to point to paresthesia, among other scarier prognoses.

I was already taking B12 but upped my supplementation of other B Vitamins after reading the various comments in this forum. I also gave myself a warm foot bath, massaged my foot with tiger balm, propped by legs up for 30 mns... but nothing seemed to work. Then two days later, just when I changed my appointment with the neurologist to see him the very next day, I got a new symptom. I started what felt like a wave of tightness and tingles from my left jaw all the way up to my left cheekbone, left temple and down the left side of my neck. I wasn't numb but just very tight and stiff. More googling seemed to point to TMJ, but by this point I was a nervous wreak, with all these symptoms appearing in such a short amount of time. The next day I explain everything to the neurologist but as my blood tests returned within range, and since my foot vibrations were so localised and were just a "feeling" and not visible, he didn't think my new symptoms were anything to worry about and dismissed me. He just told me to relax, which did make me feel better (in the meantime my self-assessed TMJ symptoms were improving slowly) but I still wanted the foot buzzing to stop. The next morning I woke up to my right thigh muscle twitching and to some random headaches that came and went in waves on both sides of the temples and head. The right edge of my tongue also started to tingle and I was getting some small twitches just below my left eye. That was it, I knew something was still wrong.

This entire time magnesium deficiency kept popping up as a possible diagnosis but since my blood test came back "within range" I didn't consider it. Turns out...that was exactly my problem! I've been supplementing since 2 days with magnesium tablets and I'm happy to say that ALL my symptoms have disappeared as well as my chronic anxiety. After much research I discovered that Serum Magnesium Levels (or Serum Total Magnesium) is the most common biomarker tested for but also the least accurate as less then 1% of total body magnesium is found in serum. So even though my Serum Magnesium came back within the range I could still be deficient in magnesium, as most magnesium exists in our bones and cells.

Moral of the story is try supplementing with magnesium if you are experiencing twitching, tingling, anxiety, headaches and other muscular/nerve related symptoms! If you want to test your levels first you will want to get a RBC Magnesium Test (not Serum) and look for an optimal range of 6.0-6.5 mg/dL, according to Dr. Carolyn Dean. When you are low in magnesium your body takes it from cells for use elsewhere. So if these red blood cells are lacking magnesium then you have an early indicator of deficiency.

Good luck everyone and thanks for reading this far :-)
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1 Comments
Errata Corrige: the buzzing was in my right heel (not left).
Avatar universal
Been having something similar to this since August last year. Visited doctors, which don't pay too much attention to the details, mostly shrug it off. Neurologist did an EMG test which came out as OK.

Been taking a stronger dosage of B12 10000 microgram (Adenosylcobalamine & Methylcobalamine) along with 2400 microgram folatic acid for 2 months, notice no difference.

Can sense vibrations really strongly in left foot, thigh and pounding (heart ?) in the chest. If there's music somewhere and I'm sitting or laying down I can clearly feel it, heartbeat also but that's a lot less bad. Once I'm completely motionless the vibration goes away (not for vibration from music).
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Avatar universal
I too had the exact same symptoms of regular vibrating of my left ankle only.  Figured I had slept wrong on the couch the other night.  Here is what worked for me.  While laying in bed reading through all of these posts, I decided to do some back stretches.  I laid flat on my back, crossed my legs at the ankle and then pulled my knees to my chest wrapping my arms around them and gently pulling for several minutes.  I repeated this exercise several times and the vibrations are completely gone.  
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Avatar universal
Yeah, putting my foot on something that vibrates actually works.  I plugged in a nebulizer, put my foot on it and found relief for my consistently vibrating nerve on my left foot, and it stopped the vibrating for a while (that was on July 5th, the second day I had vibrating nerve on my foot).   I stopped drinking caffeine for two days, and I also started using blue emu oil (got it at Wal-mart).  Not sure which of those things helped, if they even helped.  But, the buzzing in my foot went away by the end of the third day.  It does look like most people have been averaging this condition 3-14 days.
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Avatar universal
A+ reply, thank you for easing my concern (:
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