Vibrations, Buzzing, and Pulsating in Feet

[Bella.Ann.G]

Hi all,I'm a 32 year old female from Israel and apparently I belong to this place. I apologize in advance if it gets too long.In April 2012 I had these weird electric shocks (vibrations) in my right foot big toe. It went away about after a week. In December it came back and this time it also spread to other parts in both feet. Vibrations, buzzing, pulsating, popping sensations, sometimes rhythmical, sometimes completely random. Sometimes it was so fast and strong that it felt like I had a machine gun inside my foot. One day I was sitting with my laptop and felt that something was touching my foot, I looked down and there was nothing. After few seconds I felt it again, looked down and nothing. I think it was only after the tenth time that I finally realized that nothing was touching my foot. I thought I was going crazy. After 8 days I started having numbness and tingling in my hands and felt some weakness in my left arm and hand although my strength stayed the same. I also noticed that every day I woke up with my right's thigh being numb. It went away after few seconds. Oh, I forgot to mention that a month before the second episode started I had twitching in my right eyelid that lasted for a week. Anyways, I was so stressed that I couldn't eat and sleep. I was spending hours and hours on the internet looking for information. My final verdict of course was MS. I was certain I had MS. After two weeks I decided to go back home (I reside temporarily in Holland) and check into it. This is what I have been going through in the past 3 weeks...Went to my family Dr who checked my feet and hands. All was normal. Told me it didn't sound like MS but sent me to do blood and EMG tests. The blood test came normal except a very low vitamin D. EMG - Normal. Went to a neurologist who checked my eyes, reflexes. All normal. In the next 40 minutes he tried to convince me that I didn't have MS. He didn't agree to send me to do MRI because according to him it's "unhealthy". I asked him, "what do you mean unhealthy?" He said that many times people do MRI while it's unnecessary, find something and get into a non-ending cycle of examinations only to find out after years of stress and anxiety that it was nothing. On the same day I went to an orthopedist. He thought that it might have something to do with blood circulation. He told me to go back to my family Dr to get her opinion on the matter. Went back to my Doc, she didn't think it was my blood circulation and advised me to lay off the subject for few days and just try to relax. I agreed. It lasted for about 6 hours. I read about a woman who had vibrations in her legs that went away after two weeks. Three years later she woke up and couldn't move her legs. She had MS. Obviously I freaked out and two days later I had an appointment with a neurologist, a MS expert who is considered one of the best in the country. Once again, checked eyes and reflexes, all normal. Told me it wasn't MS but agreed to let me have MRI just to calm me down. Had MRI (both brain and spine) and today I received the results - Normal. There's a small hemangioma on C6, nothing to worry about. Today I have an appointment with another orthopedist and that will be it, at least for now. I'm so much calmer now. I can breath.Well, that's my story for now. Usually, I'm a very calm person. Whenever people tell me about panic attacks they experience, I have no idea what they are talking about. Always sounded so weird to me. I understand now. Through this ordeal I had discovered a whole new, different side of me. One I hope to never meet again.Oh, and for google... NEVER AGAIN! *beep* you Google, *beep* you!

 

[Bella.Ann.G]

Hey LevenLevi,Thanks for the reassuring words. I think the EMG belongs more to the ALS section. For us, MS worriers, a clean MRI would be enough (at least most of the time). So you can relax too and be sure that you are ok even without the EMG. I read here about people who went to like 8 neurologists, had many EMG and MRI. That must be mentally exhausting. I won't go that far, that's really unhealthy. I feel fine now, much calmer. My symptoms are much better too. No surprise though, I knew the stress made it worse. My first neuro said that many things could cause these symptoms, nutrition, weather, bad posture, nerve compression, vitamin deficiency, virus, something hormonal, or something non specific that will come and go till the rest of life. Or in other words - BFS. I learned my lesson with Google, all the docs also told me not to rely on what I read on the internet. But of course it's easier said than done. Thanks for the link!

 

[Bella.Ann.G]

Didn't have a good day. That annoying feeling of stretching in my left big toe is back after having a break for a week. The tingling in my hands is also back. I don't get it, yesterday I felt great and now this. Of course that makes me think that maybe it's MS after all, maybe it's the very early stage. What a mess...

 

[TwitchyAz]

LOL beep you google LOLwelcome hila...yep sounds like BFS, your story is identical to so many of us. put ALS and MS out of your mind...your symtpoms don't sound like either at all. one interesting thing is many of us with BFS seem to have low levels of vitamin D....I wonder what the correlation is. read BFS in a nutshell. you are in good company here. best of health to you.

 

[Bella.Ann.G]

Thanks TwitchyAz and Burger. I had another lousy day, my left big toe is really bothering me, I'm not really sure how to describe the feeling. When I walk it feels like something is moving and stretching and when I stop it feels like pinching. Are you familiar with that strange feeling? I know that sometimes my fear is irrational, but I can feel that there's something wrong with me. It's like my whole body is going crazy and I don't know why. When I found out that my Vitamin D was low (it's *very* low, almost nonexistent), I was really scared cause I knew about the connection between low vitamin D and MS. With the clean MRI I feel better, but still... You can't be really relaxed when you don't know the reason. I asked the doctor if the low vitamin D could have had anything to do with it. He wasn't sure but thought it was a possibility. Are any of you vegetarians by any chance? I've been one for the past 16 years. The first thing the second orthopedist asked me was if I was a vegetarian. I told him that my B12 was fine (I take B12, iron, folic acid and now also vitamin D). He said that it didn't matter. His exact words were, "you vegetarians, there's always problems with you, You always have a deficiency in something." I'm starting to think that he may be right. I'm thinking about giving up on vegetarianism. Maybe I'll start with fish, it will be easier that way. I'll see if it makes a change, I hope it will. How about a virus as a cause? Do you think it's possible?

 

[TwitchyAz]

Here is the thing...nobody will know the exact cause of BFS at this time...its normal to feel like your whole body is affected\crazy because...WELL it is!!! You need to conquer your fear of MS...anxiety\stress\worry are almost for sure guarantees to make the symtpoms worse. If you have MS you have it....there is nothing you can do to not have it so worrying about it accomplishes nothing!!! personally my opinion is, I don't think your problem is you are a vegetarian, but more likely you just don't have enough variety in your diet. If your aren't opposed to fish it can be a good addition to a vegetarian diet. A lot of vegetarians get stuck in a routine of eating the same foods over and over and the problem as I have been told is they will run deficient in certain amino acids and some micronutrients common in animal protein. a lot of us are having success with juicing, light excercise, good sleep routines, working on controlling anxiety. I have tried medications and honestly I am having more good days by changing my bad habits anyways just opinions...hope you start feeling better.

 

[Gracer]

to be honest, non-vegetarians also have deficiences, I have low Ca for example and never tested my Vitamine D level so I do not even know if Ca is low due to D-deficiency (they are interrelated, and low D causes osteoporosis)as for vitamin D, if you have lack of animal food, it really could be a trouble. basic substance for vitamin D is cholesterol, as far as I rememeber so living on vegetables and vegetable oil could really deplete it.Good source of precursos substances is a fish, yes. 'Fish oil", eg codfish liver, eggs that is what can help, and you would not compromise your vegetarianity too much. Another valuable source are baking yeast. But they can cause allergy and should be used with caution, as you know.Viruses must affect neural system to be a direct cause of twitches, but not all of them are parasytes of neuronal tissue and not all cause neuritises. Mostly from non-deadly viruses it is known or suspected for herpes, some coxakies and maybe for some other types of viruses. But ANY viral infection, even rothavirus (stomach flu) can shake your immune system and whole body so much that twitches would start, even if the virus did not affect your neurons directly. mnay of us started twithcing during or soon after the flu.