Sleep Apnea and Muscle Twitching, Cramps, Fibromyalgia

Hello all,

I'm new on here. I recently had a sleep study conducted and was initially told I had an AHI > 15. I was put on a CPAP- full facial mask only 2 hours into the study but couldn't sleep with it on. I'm waiting for the doctor to read the study and have me come back in to be fitted for a mask + machine.

I have none of the typical sleep apnea triggers: I'm young- 24 years old, athletic, non-drinker, fairly good diet. I've been told I only snore occasionally. Never have woken up short of breath/heart racing, no sleepiness during the day. Never have been told I struggle to breathe while sleeping. In fact the sleep study doc after listening to my symptoms told me and I quote, "You probably don't have sleep apnea but we'll run the test anyways..." It appears I may be one of those atypical cases.

The symptoms I do have: chronic fatigue, foggy head (especially in morning), irritable, depression, anxiety

also, and the reason why I'm posting...

I have a lot of neuro-muscular symptoms (for 2 years now) the predominant symptoms being: muscle twitching (every day- more often in the evening), muscle cramps and stiffness, muscle pain, achy joints (occasional), exercise intolerance (causes muscle twitches and cramps to increase), insomnia (this started around the same time as the muscle twitches), nerve sensations like numbness and tingling in feet & extremities, occasional nerve pain, and a host of smaller intermittant symptoms. Lately I've started getting a little chest pain right over my heart, and the sensation of difficulty breathing but this doesn't last and as soon as I get my mind off of it it goes away. Essentially I feel stiff and achy most of the day. I notice the muscle twitches and cramps increase with physical activity (unless I'm very careful and stretch extensively) and generally increase in the evening and when I'm lying down to sleep and when I wake up in the morning.

I have seen my primary care doctor for these symptoms probably over a dozen times. I've seen two rheumatologists, a neurologist (I'm going back to see another neuro doc in two weeks), endocrinologists. I've had tons of blood work done, nerve conduction test on lower legs for the muscle cramps, but each time everything comes back normal. I've simply been dealing with these sypmtoms for the last 2 years. I take 15mg of Elavil daily for pain and to help with the insomnia and flexeril to relax the muscles but these are really no more than band-aids as I feel very tired and awful every day.

After doing research on-and-off for the last two years I've narrowed down what I think could be causing the symptoms. Low Testosterone, Cervical injury/degradation, Sleep Apnea, Neurological Disease like ALS or Multiple Sclerosis, Gluten-Dairy/Food intolerance (Leaky Gut syndrome), or some combination of all the above.

I know now that I have sleep apnea- despite the fact I don't have a typical presentation of symptoms. I have found some medical articles identifying sleep apnea as potential trigger and cause for muscle twitching and cramps.

I also know that sleep disorders and fibromyalgia, benign fasiculation syndrome, cramp fasiculation syndrome all have a strong connection. So I wanted to present to the forum members here a question- (I apologize in advance if this has been asked/covered before on here)

Has anyone seen a positive improvement in their neuromuscluar/fibromyalgia symptoms (muscle twitching, muscle cramps, muscle pain, muscle stiffness, joint pain, exercise intolerance, peripheral neuropathy, weird nerve sensations, etc.) by treating Only their sleep apnea? What were your symptoms, how long did you have them, what treatments did you try before, and how has treating your sleep apnea helped with your symptoms? Have you seen a complete remission of symptoms, a 50% reduction of symptoms, etc? Lastly, how long did it take being on the CPAP to start seeing positive results?

Hopefully someone on here can help! I appreciate any feedback. I'm simply trying to find a correlation between sleep apnea and neuro-muscular symptoms for my own personal curiosity. If it helped you with your symptoms it might help me.

Thanks,

Yub Yub

I hope you get used top cpap. I also suffered from muscle pain and twitches. About two weeks after I got machine the pain stored. Muscle twitches till a bit longer

Yub Yub wrote:Hello all,

I'm new on here. I recently had a sleep study conducted and was initially told I had an AHI > 15. I was put on a CPAP- full facial mask only 2 hours into the study but couldn't sleep with it on. I'm waiting for the doctor to read the study and have me come back in to be fitted for a mask + machine.

I have none of the typical sleep apnea triggers: I'm young- 24 years old, athletic, non-drinker, fairly good diet. I've been told I only snore occasionally. Never have woken up short of breath/heart racing, no sleepiness during the day. Never have been told I struggle to breathe while sleeping. In fact the sleep study doc after listening to my symptoms told me and I quote, "You probably don't have sleep apnea but we'll run the test anyways..." It appears I may be one of those atypical cases.

The symptoms I do have: chronic fatigue, foggy head (especially in morning), irritable, depression, anxiety

also, and the reason why I'm posting...

I have a lot of neuro-muscular symptoms (for 2 years now) the predominant symptoms being: muscle twitching (every day- more often in the evening), muscle cramps and stiffness, muscle pain, achy joints (occasional), exercise intolerance (causes muscle twitches and cramps to increase), insomnia (this started around the same time as the muscle twitches), nerve sensations like numbness and tingling in feet & extremities, occasional nerve pain, and a host of smaller intermittant symptoms. Lately I've started getting a little chest pain right over my heart, and the sensation of difficulty breathing but this doesn't last and as soon as I get my mind off of it it goes away. Essentially I feel stiff and achy most of the day. I notice the muscle twitches and cramps increase with physical activity (unless I'm very careful and stretch extensively) and generally increase in the evening and when I'm lying down to sleep and when I wake up in the morning.

I have seen my primary care doctor for these symptoms probably over a dozen times. I've seen two rheumatologists, a neurologist (I'm going back to see another neuro doc in two weeks), endocrinologists. I've had tons of blood work done, nerve conduction test on lower legs for the muscle cramps, but each time everything comes back normal. I've simply been dealing with these sypmtoms for the last 2 years. I take 15mg of Elavil daily for pain and to help with the insomnia and flexeril to relax the muscles but these are really no more than band-aids as I feel very tired and awful every day.

After doing research on-and-off for the last two years I've narrowed down what I think could be causing the symptoms. Low Testosterone, Cervical injury/degradation, Sleep Apnea, Neurological Disease like ALS or Multiple Sclerosis, Gluten-Dairy/Food intolerance (Leaky Gut syndrome), or some combination of all the above.

I know now that I have sleep apnea- despite the fact I don't have a typical presentation of symptoms. I have found some medical articles identifying sleep apnea as potential trigger and cause for muscle twitching and cramps.

I also know that sleep disorders and fibromyalgia, benign emasculation syndrome, cramp fasiculation syndrome all have a strong connection. So I wanted to present to the forum members here a question- (I apologize in advance if this has been asked/covered before on here)

Has anyone seen a positive improvement in their neuromuscluar/fibromyalgia symptoms (muscle twitching, muscle cramps, muscle pain, muscle stiffness, joint pain, exercise intolerance, peripheral neuropathy, weird nerve sensations, etc.) by treating Only their sleep apnea? What were your symptoms, how long did you have them, what treatments did you try before, and how has treating your sleep apnea helped with your symptoms? Have you seen a complete remission of symptoms, a 50% reduction of symptoms, etc? Lastly, how long did it take being on the CPAP to start seeing positive results?

Hopefully someone on here can help! I appreciate any feedback. I'm simply trying to find a correlation between sleep apnea and neuro-muscular symptoms for my own personal curiosity. If it helped you with your symptoms it might help me.

Thanks,

Yub Yub

You might want to take into consideration that they diagnosed your sleep apnea BEFORE it got to the "Severe" category. An AHI greater than 15 would put you into the "Moderate" category.
Lots of us believe we had it when we were your age and younger. (that was long before CPAPs were even invented)

But, more directly, yes, lots of these things you've mentioned or describe can possibly be linked to this condition and with proper therapy, it can help minimize some of those and head off worse things like diabetes, heart disease and other ailments. Some of the other things you mentioned could also be an indication of a lack of vitamins or minerals in your system. But, sleep apnea (and oxygen deprivation) throws lots of things out of balance.

And, the proper spelling is: fasciculation syndrome


Den

.

Julie wrote: Edited: to delete Julie's quoted post.

Julie,
The post you were referring to has been "neutralized".


Den

.

Cool.

Yub Yub wrote:Hello all,

I'm new on here. I recently had a sleep study conducted and was initially told I had an AHI > 15. I was put on a CPAP- full facial mask only 2 hours into the study but couldn't sleep with it on. I'm waiting for the doctor to read the study and have me come back in to be fitted for a mask + machine.

I have none of the typical sleep apnea triggers: I'm young- 24 years old, athletic, non-drinker, fairly good diet. I've been told I only snore occasionally. Never have woken up short of breath/heart racing, no sleepiness during the day. Never have been told I struggle to breathe while sleeping. In fact the sleep study doc after listening to my symptoms told me and I quote, "You probably don't have sleep apnea but we'll run the test anyways..." It appears I may be one of those atypical cases.

The symptoms I do have: chronic fatigue, foggy head (especially in morning), irritable, depression, anxiety

also, and the reason why I'm posting...

I have a lot of neuro-muscular symptoms (for 2 years now) the predominant symptoms being: muscle twitching (every day- more often in the evening), muscle cramps and stiffness, muscle pain, achy joints (occasional), exercise intolerance (causes muscle twitches and cramps to increase), insomnia (this started around the same time as the muscle twitches), nerve sensations like numbness and tingling in feet & extremities, occasional nerve pain, and a host of smaller intermittant symptoms. Lately I've started getting a little chest pain right over my heart, and the sensation of difficulty breathing but this doesn't last and as soon as I get my mind off of it it goes away. Essentially I feel stiff and achy most of the day. I notice the muscle twitches and cramps increase with physical activity (unless I'm very careful and stretch extensively) and generally increase in the evening and when I'm lying down to sleep and when I wake up in the morning.

I have seen my primary care doctor for these symptoms probably over a dozen times. I've seen two rheumatologists, a neurologist (I'm going back to see another neuro doc in two weeks), endocrinologists. I've had tons of blood work done, nerve conduction test on lower legs for the muscle cramps, but each time everything comes back normal. I've simply been dealing with these sypmtoms for the last 2 years. I take 15mg of Elavil daily for pain and to help with the insomnia and flexeril to relax the muscles but these are really no more than band-aids as I feel very tired and awful every day.

After doing research on-and-off for the last two years I've narrowed down what I think could be causing the symptoms. Low Testosterone, Cervical injury/degradation, Sleep Apnea, Neurological Disease like ALS or Multiple Sclerosis, Gluten-Dairy/Food intolerance (Leaky Gut syndrome), or some combination of all the above.

I know now that I have sleep apnea- despite the fact I don't have a typical presentation of symptoms. I have found some medical articles identifying sleep apnea as potential trigger and cause for muscle twitching and cramps.

I also know that sleep disorders and fibromyalgia, benign fasiculation syndrome, cramp fasiculation syndrome all have a strong connection. So I wanted to present to the forum members here a question- (I apologize in advance if this has been asked/covered before on here)

Has anyone seen a positive improvement in their neuromuscluar/fibromyalgia symptoms (muscle twitching, muscle cramps, muscle pain, muscle stiffness, joint pain, exercise intolerance, peripheral neuropathy, weird nerve sensations, etc.) by treating Only their sleep apnea? What were your symptoms, how long did you have them, what treatments did you try before, and how has treating your sleep apnea helped with your symptoms? Have you seen a complete remission of symptoms, a 50% reduction of symptoms, etc? Lastly, how long did it take being on the CPAP to start seeing positive results?

Hopefully someone on here can help! I appreciate any feedback. I'm simply trying to find a correlation between sleep apnea and neuro-muscular symptoms for my own personal curiosity. If it helped you with your symptoms it might help me.

Thanks,

Yub Yub

I had many of the same symptoms you describe before getting diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. To answer your question in regards to reduction of symptoms after treatment with CPAP the answer is as follows:

The tingling and numb feeling in my lower legs and feet has totally resolved. Before CPAP I felt like I was walking on dead skin, horrible feeling.
Leg and feet cramps completely went away. Cramping in the side of my back when I laid down or sometimes with minimal movement to the side was everyday, now that is gone too. All of these muscle/nerve related things were resolved.
Morning headaches, gone for the most part except if my AHI is above 2 per hour.
No more daytime fatigue, irritability or brain fog. All of the above problems resolved within two weeks or less of using CPAP.
What didn't change is the leg jerking known as Periodic Limb Movement Disorder or the crawling feeling in my legs known as Restless Leg Syndrome. Some nights are worse than others. Most nights it doesn't bother me significantly.
Oh forgot to mention, I had the anxiety too, that has also pretty much resolved itself.
Hope this helps.

Off the wall question, but are you a vegetarian?

I have muscle twitching, which is largely alleviated by taking Multi-Vitamin, multi mineral for several days. As a diabetic, I am also told to take Vitamin D3, something like cal-mag citrate or in the category. Do you have Diabetes?

Are you taking an acid blocker? Which might reduce the amount of -- I forgot which gets through.

I have heard others who said their brain fog was related to Candida, which some also call leaky gut. But others use leaky gut to refer to something else. I now take a bit of Oregano Capsules to reduce the potential in me. I am a good candidate for Candida because my average body temperature is lower than normal. Is your temperature lower than normal?

Also I am borderline for low Thyroid, for which is is deemed better to do nothing than try to add Thyroid medication. Do you have low Thyroid?

Do you do a small amount of exercise each day, to get a bit of oxygen to move around?

Have you tried a bit of Yogurt as well? Meaning the ones with good bacteria in it.

I do not know what to say about your problem with a mask. Quite often the early hours of a sleep study one does not get enough air pressure, and one feels like they are suffocating, which might be part of the issue with the mask. Most people choose a nasal mask. Often a sleep doc or the techs at the sleep clinic, those at DME can look at your face, listen to your concerns, and suggest the mask which you are more likely to tolerate. Choosing a mask can be difficult.

There was a study in a nordic country. (In the US, most medical studies are centered around somebody making money) where they interrupted the sleep of normal people, so they did not get deep sleep. Many of that group developed Fibromyalgia, which went away when they were allowed to sleep normally, get restful sleep. Nice to know there can be and end to Fibro for some.

During the sleep study they will (as I guess you now know) put sensors on your legs to determine if you have "Restless Leg Syndrome." I really do not have that, but in my last titration the doc said I moved my legs around a lot when I was not asleep, or quite asleep. Which he indicated was not normal. As I am sure you know, there is now a drug for "Restless Leg Syndrome." In addition, have you ever had leg cramps at night? I think that goes back to a Vitamin-Mineral imbalance.

I wish I had sleep apnea treatment available to me when I was younger. It would have made a huge improvement in my overall quality of life..

Greg Riddle wrote:I hope you get used top cpap. I also suffered from muscle pain and twitches. About two weeks after I got machine the pain stored. Muscle twitches till a bit longer

Okay. Thanks Greg! This gives me some hope.

Thanks for your reply Logies101!

Janknitz wrote:Off the wall question, but are you a vegetarian?

No, I'm a full omnivore, and always have been I think I know where you were going with your question though- some vegetarians can become deficient in certain vitamins (vitamin B-12) and minerals...causing neuro-muscular symptoms?

purple wrote:I have muscle twitching, which is largely alleviated by taking Multi-Vitamin, multi mineral for several days. As a diabetic, I am also told to take Vitamin D3, something like cal-mag citrate or in the category. Do you have Diabetes?

Are you taking an acid blocker? Which might reduce the amount of -- I forgot which gets through.

I have heard others who said their brain fog was related to Candida, which some also call leaky gut. But others use leaky gut to refer to something else. I now take a bit of Oregano Capsules to reduce the potential in me. I am a good candidate for Candida because my average body temperature is lower than normal. Is your temperature lower than normal?

Also I am borderline for low Thyroid, for which is is deemed better to do nothing than try to add Thyroid medication. Do you have low Thyroid?

Do you do a small amount of exercise each day, to get a bit of oxygen to move around?

Have you tried a bit of Yogurt as well? Meaning the ones with good bacteria in it.

I do not know what to say about your problem with a mask. Quite often the early hours of a sleep study one does not get enough air pressure, and one feels like they are suffocating, which might be part of the issue with the mask. Most people choose a nasal mask. Often a sleep doc or the techs at the sleep clinic, those at DME can look at your face, listen to your concerns, and suggest the mask which you are more likely to tolerate. Choosing a mask can be difficult.

There was a study in a nordic country. (In the US, most medical studies are centered around somebody making money) where they interrupted the sleep of normal people, so they did not get deep sleep. Many of that group developed Fibromyalgia, which went away when they were allowed to sleep normally, get restful sleep. Nice to know there can be and end to Fibro for some.

During the sleep study they will (as I guess you now know) put sensors on your legs to determine if you have "Restless Leg Syndrome." I really do not have that, but in my last titration the doc said I moved my legs around a lot when I was not asleep, or quite asleep. Which he indicated was not normal. As I am sure you know, there is now a drug for "Restless Leg Syndrome." In addition, have you ever had leg cramps at night? I think that goes back to a Vitamin-Mineral imbalance.

I wish I had sleep apnea treatment available to me when I was younger. It would have made a huge improvement in my overall quality of life..

Janknitz,

No I'm not pre-diabetic. All my thyroid panels came back normal. I have tried supplementing with magnesium, calcium, Vitamin B 12, and Vitamin D (for about 2 months) but my muscle twitching/cramping hasn't been reduced. The magnesium does have a mild therapeutic affect- it reduces my anxiety and makes me feel more calm (I was taking 400-600mg of Natural Calm Magnesium Chloride Powder).

I had also seen the studies about the Fibro and sleep disruption. As some of my symptoms are similar to Fibro I'm thinking there is some connection?

Yub Yub.......
I have had severe fibromyalgia for years. Your symptoms sound like what I live with daily. Have you ever been checked out by a rheumatologist? There are 18 tender points on your body to be tested. This is called mapping. Unfortunately, Cpap did not help me with this at all, however everyone is different and because It didn't help me does not mean that you cannot be helped.

Good luck,
Janice

I did find getting my sleep straightened out helped my pain levels in general. Have read that sleep deprivation can lead to increased sensitivity to pain. Others on the forum have said treating their sleep apnea helped their pain. My situation of pain relief is not so black or white, as I have PLMD and the constant movement at night contributed to my pain, as my legs never rested. Treating both the sleep apnea and the limb movements helped immensely, but it's hard to separate what helped.

jwerley wrote:Yub Yub.......
I have had severe fibromyalgia for years. Your symptoms sound like what I live with daily. Have you ever been checked out by a rheumatologist? There are 18 tender points on your body to be tested. This is called mapping. Unfortunately, Cpap did not help me with this at all, however everyone is different and because It didn't help me does not mean that you cannot be helped.

Good luck,
Janice

Thanks Janice. Sorry Cpap hasn't helped you. I've heard making radical changes to diet like going gluten and dairy free and all processed foods people have cured their fibro. I'm planning on doing this in the next few months to see if it helps.

kteague wrote:I did find getting my sleep straightened out helped my pain levels in general. Have read that sleep deprivation can lead to increased sensitivity to pain. Others on the forum have said treating their sleep apnea helped their pain. My situation of pain relief is not so black or white, as I have PLMD and the constant movement at night contributed to my pain, as my legs never rested. Treating both the sleep apnea and the limb movements helped immensely, but it's hard to separate what helped.

Okay, I guess I'll need to wait and see if I also have restless leg syndrome or Plmd. Thanks for the reply! Good to know you need to treat both.

Yub Yub wrote:Thanks Janice. Sorry Cpap hasn't helped you. I've heard making radical changes to diet like going gluten and dairy free and all processed foods people have cured their fibro. I'm planning on doing this in the next few months to see if it helps.

You have some medical studies about that to cite?

Typical example

the fact is there's little scientific evidence to support any single eating plan as a way to deal with fibromyalgia. Nevertheless, a trip around the Internet will show that dietary approaches to fibromyalgia abound.

because the Internet is such a wealth of accurate clinical proven information.