Woke Up In Pain Today

[Coyote]

Boy early this morning I woke up to pain in my hips and including both legs down to and including the knees.

I have had swelling in ankles and feet for the last few days but can seem to prop them up and they get better.

I popped a baclofen and eventually returned to sleep...but now I have lower back pain.

Could this be the muscles and nerves being affected? I thought this must be arthritis or something all of a sudden until I took the pill and felt some muscles twitch and relax.

Anybody else get these pain things?

Kewanee

[Erin]

I woke up to the Charley Horses From Heck making my calf muscles trying to kill me today. That is so not cool to get woken up by a leg that's trying it's best to make me kick myself in the rear with my heel.

The only way for me to make the Charley Horses go away is to stand up, and do you know how hard it is to stand up when your feet are curling under you? I just had to lay there and wait for things to go away eventually.

But, I dont think the pain from the charley horses was bad, just really annoying. I know where it came from too...I helped a neighbor move some paving stones from my yard to his yard yesterday. Probably shouldnt have done that.

Before I was given a steroid taper last week, I was waking up every morning for a couple of years with some serious pain in my left hip and in my low back...apparently the steroid helped that, because I havent woken up crying from the hip/back pain since I got that steroid. Hopefully the steroid lowered the inflammation that was causing that pain and whatever's been causing that inflammation will heal now so that I wont get the pain back as soon as I finish the prednisone.

At least the steroid is helping me in some ways, it's not really helping what it was given to me for. But at least it's doing something for me. I just cant wait till I'm done with it....hate side effects.

[Coyote]

Oh I do know tho. I am tapering from prednisone and am currently down to 8mg.

Thing is I also know about the cramping and spasms you speak of. Mine mostly are in hands and legs and show up alot in feet.

They'll start to get rigid, going down the leg into the foot, and then the foot will begin to twist under.

I've gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and have my foot in that position and hit the floor.

Yep. You overdid and got into positions your body didn't like. Don't do that again. Ouch.

Standing up with bad spasms like that used to work for me but then it just turned into this twisting thing. Now I try to work it out by making my foot go from one side to the other until it stops if I can. More often than not...I have to wait until it's ready to stop.

I have even felt it coming on in my hands for example and try to stop it from happening ..... just to find out it needs to run it's course. When it's ready, it's over.

Many have said here and on the Dystonia forum even, magnesium is helpful.
I can't take it as I get hot like on fire and turn red but.....there are diff. kinds of magnesium. They say not the citrate as it acts like a laxative.
Have you tried any of this to help?
I sure hope something helps for you, I know how it hurts.
I get it just putting my foot in a certain position or my legs or ....putting on shoes.
Kewanee

[Erin]

I've never tried magnesium. Altho, I'm starting to do research on vitamins and stuff, to see if I can take supplements to keep myself healthy from now on.

I've never had that much of a problem before with this stuff...the charley horses, and back and hip pain... The MS is still fairly new to me...well, not all that new, I've probably had this at least 10yrs, but I never knew that it was MS that was causing my problems, so I didnt think I had an actual problem until the neuro said I had MS and then a ton of stuff started to make sense to me finally.

Until the neuro told me that I had MS, I didnt think any of the problems I've had over the past few years were connected to one cause. I thought they all had separate causes and that it was because I'm basically a lazy person and wasnt in shape and just kept injuring myself doing stuff that an out of shape person should not be doing.

I'm trying to start doing stuff again to keep in shape. Until last year when I got optic neuritis, I'd been walking every evening with my aunt and her dog. (I'd been walking my dog every night till he died in March of 2006) and I thought I was in reasonable shape. Then I got optic neuritis and spent several months terrified of the possibility of an MS diagnosis and basically hid in my room for most of that time. (it was dark, and quiet and full of yarn and crochet hooks, so I wasnt too bored)

Then I got the MS diagnosis, and again, I've spent a few...months...hiding in my basement some more. I'm starting to come out of the Bat Cave now and trying to start doing more again while I still can. It's just been in the past few months that I've tried to get more active and then I started getting vertigo every few days.

Hopefully whatever the doctor is looking for will tell him what's causing the vertigo, if it's the MS or something else. That's why he gave me the prednisone. I'm not sure if the fact that I've not had the dizzies for a couple of days would be the result he's looking for after a prednisone taper. I just hope the dizzies dont come back after the prednisone wears off. I have 3 more days to go with it.

At least my doctor isnt ignoring my problems like I've had other doctors do...and he's sending reports about me to my neuro so that the neuro will be able to see what's going on other than when he sees me every so many months. I go to the neuro on tuesday for a regular visit, and he should have all the reports about my vertigo by then from the other doctor...hopefully he'll have an opinion about what's causing it and what to do to make the sickie dizzies go away.

I'm just happy that an apparent good side effect to the prednisone was the nice break from the back and hip pain...that's probably the best thing the prednisone has done for me. If it doesnt last, at least I had a little bit of a break from the pain. I hadnt been taking pain meds for it, because I get sick on narcotic type drugs, and I dont really care for killing my liver and kidneys with tylenol and ibuprofen. So I'd just been trying to ignore it. Maybe if it comes back, it wont hurt as much as it had been.

[Barb]

Kewanee

the more we post the more things sound so familar. Boy do we make a pair.

I woke up yesterday morning with pain down my left leg from thigh to my ankle - don't know why or what caused it - and it didn't go away.

Finally got some sleep - since you know how I feel about taking my narcotic pain pills. Slept for about 4 hours and was back up because the pain just increased to the point that it woke me up again.

Think this morning I took a couple of tylenol that helped for a little bit so I could get some things done but didn't last long - so not sure what is going on either. All I know is that it hurts to walk on the leg and I am gimping around today just like I did yesterday. Hopefully tomorrow will be better because we have lots of walking to do and like Erin I don't really like taking lots of tylenol or ibuprofin either especially with the other meds I am on.

[Coyote]

Hi Pooh,
Hehe Barb...I so like Pooh. I'm gimping around too today. That muscle you mentioned is the same one I get that will first go rigid now. Didn't use to do that...just cramp and spasm. It is the one that goes right down to the ankle and foot to make it turn in. So let's hope it won't progress to anything with you.
Yep a pair indeed.

Erin, I've been through episodes of what you are going through with the vertigo. It's just lousy. I hope it passes.

It's so hard to tell with these things what is the problem really. People with MS have other things wrong too. Can get arthritis, Dystonia's, blood pressure problems ect. ect. and wonder is it the MS or something else causing it.

At least you have a listening Doctor and have your diagnosis. It's hard to have things happen and know something is not right and not know why.
Good for you on that one anyways.

Best Wishes.

Kewanee

[Mariel]

Talking about magnesium, it was the thing which stopped my foot from turning under as you describe. Not helped, stopped. I started with 800 mg, rec. by my neuro.

Yes Mag Citrate is a laxative, so it's best to get another kind. Asporotate, Taurate, those are the ones I take, but Gluconate might work, Oxide maybe, although Oxide doesn't digest in my stomach awfully well.

As I've said, I had to up the mag to 1100 mg later. My myoclonus came, and the clonus which I now realize I have after reading here. But ll00 mg will usually stop all of this. I also take l00mg B1 per night.

If you turned red with magnesium, that is indeed a problem and I can't understand it. Perhaps you need to balance it with calcium. I take l000 mg of Calcium per day, between meals, while I take Mag with meals. I had been using Calcium to stop the charley horses for a couple of years until the situation suddenly worsened and the neuro told me to add magnesium. But you need both.

[Coyote]

Thank you Mariel.
I wrote this down and will go to the natural section and pick some up.

I had some "Calm" once but got afraid to take it. I wonder what I did with it?

Kewanee