Spasticity question....

Hey Shar!

You have asked some good question here. I don't have the answer!!!  (shocking!! hehe).  Ok here is my take: I know that we are told to avoid over doing anything.  I would not go out and march around as fast as you can until you can't take the pain anymore in the hopes that you can increase your fitness level.  I would maybe try to walk a bit faster than your usual saunter  (I avoided the "saunterer" ;)  I would stretch and stretch as much as you can.  I had some horrible spastic calf muscles and the therapist had me doing a stretch where you stand with just the balls of your feet on a step.  You stretch slowly down, dropping your heals below the level of the step.  Then, you raise up standing on your tip-toes lifting your body above the level of the step.  They had me do this two or three times a day for twenty lifts.  Make sure you stop if you cramp or get sore.  Also you may want to try a magnesium supplement.  If you take calcium without magnesium you can make spasticity worse.  Ok that is all I can think of.

Good luck with that.  The step stretch seemed to help build some muscles for me as well as stretch them and I am pretty sure it helped me.

The weirdest part for me is how fast this has exacerbated since the episode that sent me to the neuro that got everyone's attention. Prior that moment when my right hand quit working for me ( tremors, no fine motor control, semi-paralysis for pretty much 24 hrs or more)... I'd just had the usual periodic cramps, RLS, stiffness, IBS, some blurry vision (very intermitten), the constant migraines, several numb spots... but nothing super definiitve (or so I thought)... but since that one episode it's like I'm on an out of control roller coaster! I never know what's coming next!

And now this spasticity drives my legs nuts... so about twice  a week I finally can't stand (literally) and I blast it with the cocktail of pain and muscle relaxants and sleep aids... yes, a precarious little concoction but useful.

But your thinking on the interconnectivity of the muscles makes sense to me, I can relate to the back labor from experience and when I connected the calf muscle stress to traveling up the thigh which encompasses the buttock which yanks the lower back and is all on the same side as the double scoliosis (I've got an "extra calcification" over my right hip that fuses the spine and the hip somewhat) issues... then that made sense to me.

Kinda like Newton's law about what goes up must come down or for every action there's an equal reaction... we're just full of them! :)

Well good morning ladies......thanks for the information - the back pain and the muscle cramping seems to have subsided somewhat - maybedue to the fact that I swallowed down some muscle relaxants - and with this, the stomach ache/nausea has gone away in proportion. It makes sense to me too, that all of these muscles are all interconnected, so if the back muscles are acting up, it will hve an influence on other things.....now if it is MS related, or just the fact that I am 54 - I guess one would have to calculate this into the equation - Hmmmmmmm.....

Thanks again, and have a great day...

PS, Gretchen, last night you mentioned a drug for spasticity (no not the botox!!!!!!) - can you pass it on to me again....thanks

Gary

I use a "cocktail" at night to deal with my legs... it's fairly simple but it works for me... 2 Flexeril, 1 Tylenol #3, if the RLS is bad, I'll throw in a Mirapex, and often I add 2 Calms Forte and 2 Hylands Leg Cramps with Quinine (natural).   The combination of these work well with me. The tylenol 3 is the only thing that has ever touched my nerve pain. No Lortab/hydrocodone, oxycontins, percoets, ultracets, Ultrams, or anything else they've suggested have helped (they just make me loopy and being an ex-Detox Tech Supervisor, I'm leary of major opiate addiction). It seems if I can get a really good night s sleep and wake up relieved I usually don't spaz til late the next day... if I get several nights in a row, then I may stave off a major flare. It's a crapshoot though.

Gary, I don't buy the "age" thing anymore... we all are aging but many much older than me aren't having these issues so yep, I'd say it's MS....the pain also has a life of its own in our bodies that no one else can really relate to except those of us who get it. So don't discount yourself, I'm 53 but this is the same pains I've been dealing with since around 40 so it  can't be because I'm 50+ cos I wasn't back then. :) Be good to you, hope you get help with the bacoflen... I'm hoping I can give it a fair chance on vacation this next two weeks! 

I'm gonna really give the Bacoflen a good solid try, maybe it needs to build up in my system to work right and not having to drive for the next 10 days will be a good time to try it out. :)

Yes, Quinine is good for malaria too, but it's also awesome for the restless legs. Neuro commented how the OLD legatrin actually used to have regulated Quinine in it, whereas now when you look at the Legatrin ingredients, it doesnot, and it's actually simply Tylenol PM... at nearly twice the price! So I just use the Ty Pm now. Legatrin is nothing more than that.

HBird, it's odd but Botox actually makes sense but I'm also afraid it makes sense that if Botox freezes out the wrinkles so that the muscles don't make wrinkles per se, then it might also make the muscles that twitch/spasm freeze into uselessness too... I'd be a bit wary on this idea. I guess it'd be interesting to try, but what if you did it, and it acted like a paralysis instead? Kind of a weird thought to me, I'm just thinking out loud here. :) Alot to ponder.

Spasticity has become my number one nemesis now in my right leg...  it triggers enormous pain on a regular basis so that a good day is if I get thru half of it without limping or spasms of pain at some point.