32 year old with rare symptoms + tingling + twitching

Posted by jhord @jhord, Aug 9, 2021

I’m a 32 year old male, a few years ago I started getting twitching in my left eye and calf muscles. 2 years later the twitching has gotten worse and spread to almost all my muscles.

I’ve been to 3 separate neurologists and have been tested for ALS and never conduction studies etc, all have come back normal. I was diagnosed with benign muscle fasciculation syndrome.

My muscles become stiff and and bit painful after and attack and get worse with stimulants such as caffeine and Tobbaco.

I have mild kidney disease and gout.

Does anyone know if I should be worried?

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Jennifer, Volunteer Mentor | @jenniferhunter | Aug 9, 2021

@jhord I wanted to welcome you to Connect, a community of patients who share experiences. Only a medical professional can assess your degree of health risk, and providing the most accurate information for your providers will help your physicians help you.

Muscle contraction is dependent on chemistry and also on the electrical impulse the muscle receives. I have a physician who is a functional medicine specialist and they look at chemistry in the body and understand the cycles that create energy for life and detox the waste products that result. You can control some of this with changes in diet so you don't overwork your kidneys. Kidneys can be damaged by high blood pressure because the blood vessels inside them are so small. Diet affects gout which you are probably aware of since you have been diagnosed with it. Do you think it would be worth trying eliminating the things that you know are causing issues? My mom had kidney disease and for a while had to watch her diet closely. Kidneys have to last a lifetime and do a lot of work removing waste products and toxins from the blood and every prescription medicine you take. My doctor recommended that I take epsom salt baths and soak about 20 minutes at least. That allows my body to absorb magnesium through the skin and magnesium is used to help detox the body. Magnesium promotes muscle relaxation and many people are deficient according to my doctor.

This article explains how the combination of caffeine and nicotine raise blood pressure significantly. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7752180/

Are you checking your blood pressure regularly? Are you drinking enough water? With my mom, dehydration caused erratic heart beats.

I am a spine surgery patient because of an old whiplash injury. I had spinal cord compression and it did cause pain and tingling and muscles jumping all over my body. That was resolved by spine surgery that decompressed my spinal cord. If you have had a motor vehicle accident or a spine injury, there could be a physical spine issue. Have any of your doctors asked about that possibility?

As a patient, you have a lot of choices and those choices can improve your health a lot. Doctors do their best to help, but they treat symptoms after a disease begins. Why not make better choices and avoid the health problems? You have power in your choices.

Here are some links about diet for gout and kidney disease.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/gout-diet/art-20048524
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/kidney-disease/chronic-kidney-disease-ckd/eating-nutrition
Have your doctors discussed any of these diet recommendations with you?