Muscle twitching & tremors

[fallingstar]

Long story short - I've had tremors in my hands since I was around 7 or 8 I was told. This was a rough time for me at that age - so I've always put it off to anxiety - I've also put it off to genetics as I know that can cause it - or just plain old luck of being born with it. I've never had any cause for alert of something more serious or anything neural related - as far as I know.

Let me add I was hospitalized for several hours recently (month ago) due to a fever and very low potassium (was said to be temporary/non long term potassium defficiency) - this was due to my diet - I wasn't taking care of myself. Now I drink tons of water, do a multi vitamin and have a banana or orange juice every other day and eat a couple meals a day. Wonder if the potassium thing could be a culprit as well?

I've noticed recently - in the last 2 weeks that my hands have been shaking a lot more - maybe because I'm paying more attention to it - work with customers' spectacles which takes finesse and tiny screw drivers and tools to manipulate and repair them - or maybe it's just the immense stress, higher intake of caffeine and obvious lack of proper sleep.

The hand tremors sometimes go up into my elbows - after an extremely stressful hour at work or a panic attack or after a 2 mile walk.

At rest, I still get tremors - again I always have.

Does anyone else get this? And how do they deal with this? It's generally not bad enough for people to notice unless I'm working on something or I'm nervous or concentrating a whole lot.

I've also noticed a lot more twitching/numbness/tingling right in between my left lip/cheek/nose. Again - right now I'm exhausted but can't sleep and worked overnights all weekend and a day shift. So I'm guessing that's the main cause. Still freaking me out though. Any home remedies or tips? Thanks.

[Jbaine]

Hello :)
I don't have tremors but I do have muscle twitching all over. Some days I notice it way more than others. It is a classic symptom of anxiety. The more anxious I am the more I twitch.
I have heard that low potassium can cause twitching as well.
My husband seems to have tremors while resting or sleeping. He has had them forever.
With you saying that you had them since you were very young would make me think that it is nothing serious.

[fallingstar]

Thanks, Jen.

I'm cutting caffeine out today - well my morning cup of super strong coffee and a latter one. I will have a small midday one as I don't want caffeine withdrawal as that's awful! I may just drink some nice black tea today (less caffeine per oz/ml). I love the taste of coffee - guess I'll just brew a ton of decaf ;) It's my go to drink aside from water or decaf green iced tea. We'll see if it helps with the shaking and jittery feeling. I already expect this is all from anxiety - I've been waking up in terror and shakes and racing heart every morning this week now. I think the eye and facial muscles on the left side that are twitching are caffeine related as this morning - 15 hours after last ingestion of caffeine - they're barely present.

[2Anxious]

There isn't usually potassium in multi vitimans. Also multi vitimans are mostly useless as there's no way the body can absorb them all at once, and some vitamins interfere with other vitamins etc.

If you've been potassium deficient in the past, one banana every other day isn't going to do a thing. It's quite a misconception, one banana only has about 12% RDA for potassium. Try and eat atleast 3 a day, also get more avocados and potatoes into your diet as they are high in potassium.

Did the doctors just give you potassium through a drip and send you on your way?

[23tana]

Have you ever seen a neurologist? They would be able to explain all your symptoms and what to do.