All my life, i’ve occasionally had slight twitches when falling asleep. But over the last few months, they seem to have increased in magnitude and frequency.
It usually results in one of my arms lashing out suddenly. It’s gotten to the stage where my wife tucks my near arm under a pillow or under her body when we go to sleep, because on a few occasions i’ve whacked her in the head or the body.
When we’re in bed, she’s the one in the biggest danger. But in other situations, i run the risk of self-injury. This afternoon, after we got home, i lay on the couch to watch some TV and proceeded to drift off. Suddenly i experienced another spasm, and my left arm lashed out and smacked hard onto the corner of our wooden coffee table. Ouch! Fuck!
Interestingly enough, my wife traces the start of this increased spasm activity to my return to regular exercise and the gym some months ago. She says that it’s only since we’ve been going to the gym (where i lift weights) that my spasms have increased in violence and frequency.
Oh God yes. I flop around like I’m having electroconvulsive therapy. And they’re far more pronounced after a day of exertion. I’ve never pulled a Muhammad Ali number on my wife or the furniture, though—mine are more like a whole-body convulsion.
For awhile my arm would jerk up while I was using something and it would fly across the room until it hit the wall or ceiling. A few times I woke up in the air above my bed and coming down. I broke the bed frame three times doing this. I took medicine to stop it. I don’t remember which medicine it was. I don’t take it any longer. I still have problems with muscle contractions that give me muscle cramps, but they don’t result in stuff flying across the room anymore. Before anybody says why don’t I do something, it’s because I don’t have health care available and end it at that.
I suggest you see a doctor and immediately sleep in different beds to protect your wife. This is especially important if you have good muscle strength, as she is going to be injured.
I know that I have literally punched out an old boyfriend while asleep … apparently I rolled over and let fly …
I am having an issue right now with restless leg syndrome … while I was admitted to hospital for 39 hours for my hysterectomy, they out these wonderful massaging air pressure booties on me to keep me from having clot issues … which we have determined overstimulated the nerves causing the RLS [I am now on neurotin for a few weeks to see if it interrupts the problem and stops the RLS or if it is something I am going to continue having. It has been 2 days so far, and it seems to have reduced the attacks.]
It would seriously suck ass to make it from 1980 to now with no neuropathy, no retinopathy and good kidneys to get RLS permanently from massage booties
Mein Herr does this just as he falls asleep, which nearly gave me a heart attack on our honeymoon twenty-somepin years ago, because I had never slept with him before. We’re drifting off into marital blissful sleep when he does a full-body twitch that launches me ten feet up and onto a nearby wall, hyperventilating. I was convinced that he was dying. Now…eh…whatever.
