Does anyone else experience this?????? Help is required

[mrj]

My doc states I have RLS, but I don't have a constant desire to move my legs. What I experience is a buzzing sensation in legs, and sometimes all over my body. I feel like someone just hooked me up to a toaster with a fork. The electric buzzing as I call it starts last a few seconds, stops, then comes back, then stops. you get the picture right? This literally reminds me of those Tom and Jerry cartoons everytime Tom got shocked.
Of course the buzzing is worse with resting and terrible when its bedtime...Ha did I say bedtime, I mean no sleep time. I also find that when I am getting sleepy and really want to go to sleep I get these horrible sensations like the buzzing has reached my heart and my heart is being jumpstarted every 15-20 seconds, but I feel pulse and there is no change in beats. My other terrible complaint with this is when I'm almost asleep it feels as is I have a vertical episode of vertigo but no spinning, just an awful sensation in my head (maybe like a thunder clap)..............help please, if you have had any of these problems let me know.

[ViewsAskew]

Wow. . .hope someone else has some answers for you.

RLS can be experienced in many ways. Mine is sort of electrical. Some is painful. The one thing they all have in common, though, it that moving temporarily makes the weird sensation stop.

Soooooo, when you get this feeling and you walk around or do movement of some kind, does the feeling stop or at least lessen? If it does not, I would doubt a diagnosis of RLS - but I am not a doctor.

Try writing a post to Dr Buchfurer - www.rlshelp.org. If anyone can help, it would be him. Make sure you tell him if moving helps at all or not, though.

[Sojourner]

My symptoms seem to have morphed to the point that now the emg like electrical shocks are the primary expression. "Seems" to initially happen just as I am about to fall aseep or perhaps have just entered sleep. A bit random after that. I wonder if it is of the "PSM" variety which is described in a link (too detailed for me) provided in another post. Enuf of that.

Actually, I was wondering, perhaps selfishly, if others have found certain medications or other treatment methods to have more positive effect on certain types of symptoms than others. For instance, have others with the "electric shocks," or something similar, found some meds or relief more effective than others?

Shalom

[Neco]

I believe this is probably RLS, and I'd talk with your doc about possible treatments.

I have never been able to put my symptoms into words myself, because I do not feel the typical pain, itching/burning, pulling or twisting that others feel. It's simply an unpleasent nonpainful sensation that forces me to physically move for relief.

If I take enough diphenhydramine (benadryl) I will kind of experience what you just described.. However in my case it is partly movement that sets it off. I don't usually take sleep aids, etc because they do make it worse, but I'm on a holiday from narcotics so I just eat a crapload of diphenhydramine and wait for it to knock me out.

It's definitely a weird feeling. Sometimes I'll feel it in the torso, right in the middle, or more rear on the back. It'll cause you to twitch and your limbs may suddenly jerk off in one direction, etc..

For starters, look at what medicines you currently take, both OTC and Rx. Common instigators are allergy medications like benadryl, and anit-depressants, and I'm pretty sure there are other things out there too.

[Hos]

I agree with Ann regarding movement. Does that decrease the symptoms at least temporarily?

What meds and over the counter meds are you taking right now?

Sounds like a candidate for a sleep study? Hang in there!

[jan3213]

RLS is so different in everyone. Of course, there are the 4 criteria--I can't quote them verbatim. I have never had my limbs jerk, like some people. Mine started out as a deep ache and uncomfortable feeling and escalated to feeling like I had worms crawling inside my legs, then my arms and the only way to "help" was to walk, walk, walk. And, that was temporary. I don't have the electrical shock feeling some people have.

Now, when I have an attack, I have pain in my legs as well as the creepy crawly feeling.

I agree with Hos. Perhaps a sleep study is in order. A lot of us have had sleep studies. A sleep study won't diagnose RLS, but it will tell you if you experience a lot of movement during the night (PLMD or PLMS).

Good luck to you.

Jan

[blubeachwalkr]

Having had RLS since I was a child (remember those growing pains?), my symptoms became radically worse after three back surgeries...understandable, I guess. My mother had a terrible "CASE" of RLS, and I was giving her requip the night before she died. The vicious cancer she had did not cause her the agony that RLS brought once she was bedridden.

Thank goodness the doctors gave me mirapex, and Ive been on higher and higher doses of it for abt four yrs. Suddenly, I am having problems with my arms; they are just like my legs. The doctors have increased the mirapex and even tried the requip (it was like drinking water).

Does anyone have the arm problems? It is much worse than my legs feel even though it's the same, and I can't explain that either. I'm just curious if others have it in the arms and how they deal with it.

Thank you for any help! Blubeachwalkr

[Aiken]

My right arm bugs me sometimes. Overall, my RLS is probably about as weak as it gets on this forum, but even so, in my arm, it's very hard to ignore. Like you, I don't think it's any stronger in my arm, but just like any other discomfort, the closer it is to your head, the more intrusive it tends to be. Even when my leg is really bad, it's still just in the "really bloody annoying" range, but when my shoulder is also bad, it gets much closer to "intolerable."

[sugbrendas]

IMHO see a Dr. 1st thing. It could very well be RLS but could be something in addition to the RLS. We have to be aware that not everything we experience is from the RLS.

In a sleep study i was found to also have low oxygen during REM, it can be fatal so all of the info you can get is good. I use oxygen at night now.
I guess in a way i can say RLS saved my life. Had i not had the study i could of died.

With that being said, electrical shocks are one of my many feelings i get.
It's very simular to a nerve conduction study.
I also have the jumping, the twitching -just smaller jumps and the bug crawling, the bug thing is the worse for me, i'm always checking to make sure something is not crawing up my leg.
For sure why i don't tolerate ANY kind of bug in my home!

good luck

[dogeyed]

That buzzing electrical shock thing sounds like a drug withdrawal I had a few years ago. I was on SSRIs. and when I forgot my dose or later when I got off it, I had those electric shocks. So, some medications can do that to you, including the dizzy feeling.

[eliza]

I have a buzzing sensation that sounds just like what you describe. In fact, it was the first thing that happened to me in the series that led to the restless part of RLS. There are 5 separate sensations I experience now, either in combinations or separately. The buzzing in legs, arms, hands and feet; tingling; cramped muscles that feel like they’re made of wood; that horrid restless thing that feels like electric eels squirming in my legs etc.; and a weird need to stretch. Although my feet hurt, fortunately I don’t have the electrical pain many people experience.

I would be really concerned if I felt charges in my heart and vertigo. You should definitely check with a doctor on that one.

On a side note, yesterday my hands and legs were buzzing like crazy. Hubby took my hand as we walked and I thought sure he would be able to feel the buzzing. He didn’t though. I thought of that when you said your pulse stayed the same even though you could feel a charge in your heart. It is all strange and unsettling. I hope you find some answers.

[mich711]

I too get this electric buzzing feeling. Buzzing, perhaps, as if it's vibrating very fast, to the point where it's buzzing. I also do not feel the need to move my legs, unlike many rls sufferers. It does get better terporarily if I walk or move them, but I don't feel the need to move. Sometimes I do, however, and it's during those times where if I don't move it as it wants to, then it will jerk as it does in my sleep. And sleep? No, I don't. If I am lucky, I get 1-2 hours nowadays or very light sleep. I get almost no deep sleep whatsoever. My case is not even severe, it's profound!

I also feel like I have hyper-excitibility of my nervous system. No matter how little sleep I get (and this has been going on for over 6 years!), I am almost always not sleepy. It's like I am plugged in to an outlet, and never shut off. I feel wired. I am on no other medication other than birth control (ortho try-cyclen, which I have no reaction to).

This rls and plmd, for me, came on after I started to turn first to over-the-counter meds, and then prescriptions. Drugs did this to me!

[Aiken]

My other terrible complaint with this is when I'm almost asleep it feels as is I have a vertical episode of vertigo but no spinning, just an awful sensation in my head (maybe like a thunder clap)

I just had a bad episode, which I recounted in the pharma forum, which was probably related in part to an infection, and included something like this:

Often, at the worst, when I'd be just about to pop over into unconsciousness, I'd have a combination of feelings: First, the world would sort of feel like it was dropping out... or perhaps like I was dropping out of it... but regardless, there was this sort of physical sense of dropping. At the same time, what tinnitus I have would suddenly max out for an instant, very loud, and then all sound and vision would drop out completely for another instant, and then I'd wake up all freaked out.

Similar at all?

[Penguinrocks]

I had the same thing like Dogeyed. Effexor XR was what i was weaning off of