[jrae]

this may sound like a stupid/dumb question, but I'm gonna ask it anyways. how does a person tell the difference between a nerve tingling and a muscle twitch/spasm???

I tried to google it and did not find anything helpful. so I just thought I'd see if anyone on here could explain it or shed some info.

I'm asking cuz I'm trying to figure out if what I'm feeling/noticing is something I should go to the doctor for. cuz I don't want to go if I really don't need to - and on the flip side, I don't want to wait and later find out I shouldn't have gone in.

so thanks

[Travelinglady]

The spasm feels more like a jerking. How long have you had the tingling?

[Skeezyks]

Well... honestly... I don't really know. But I'll go out on a limb here & say that, to me, a nerve tingling would be more rapid & sort-of under the skin, if that makes any sense. I'm an old goat & so I get those sorts of things periodically. I think it just comes with age.

A muscle twitch or spasm, on the other hand, is more "overt", so to speak. At least the way I've experienced it, it involved a quick jerking motion of one of my arms. I had this when I was on Cymbalta for a period of time. When I would be using the mouse to my laptop, all of a sudden & without warning my arm would just jerk forward an inch or two. (Depending on what I was doing on my computer at the time, it could produce some distressing results.) When I went off of my SNRI, this jerkiness went away. I no longer have it.)

Anyway those are my non-professional musings with regard to your post. Hope they help.

[jrae]

Originally Posted by Travelinglady

The spasm feels more like a jerking. How long have you had the tingling?

it has been off-and-on (random) for a few months now, but is noticeably worse lately

[Travelinglady]

I think you should get it checked out, dear one, since it's getting worse. Let us know what the doc says, please.

[jrae]

my appt is set for next week, on the 28th. and if my guess it right, i'll probably have to have an mri done, which will mean some waiting time for the results of that

[*Laurie*]

I'm not saying don't go to the doctor, but I don't exactly understand what the problem is. Are you having pain?

[jrae]

Originally Posted by Travelinglady

I think you should get it checked out, dear one, since it's getting worse. Let us know what the doc says, please.

had my MRI - just waiting the results. could go one of two ways, either yes they find something or no they don't. not sure which is preferred...

[jrae]

Originally Posted by Travelinglady

I think you should get it checked out, dear one, since it's getting worse. Let us know what the doc says, please.

so what I didn't mention before is this is in my back!

the MRI showed a vertebrae compression fracture deformity at T7, which is the middle of my back (not acute). it showed the 2 discs above that vertebrae AND the 2 discs below that vertebrae have what's known as 'vertical herniations' (called Schmorl's nodes). it also showed the top of those four discs has a bulge big enough that it's touching my spinal cord! and the two below that have minor bulging.
[i was in a fairly bad car crash 28 months ago]

so this past week I saw both my reg doctor (who saw me in dec), and then also my chiro, who I haven't seen in over a year and a half but has been my chiro for the last ten plus years (as needed off and on). the strange thing was both seemed like this wasn't anything big or to be concerned about!

am I missing something here?! I just found out that I was walking around with a fractured vertebrae for months until it "healed" and didn't know about it! and since the shape of that vertebrae has changed, like a set of dominos, so has it affected the rest of my spine and changed it's 'shape'. I'm kinda freaking out here cuz I'm not that old, only in my early thirties, and already have neck and low back problems!

and I keep my 'physical' and 'non-physical' things separate, meaning when it comes to seeing docs about physical pain or problems, I do NOT tell them that I have MIs. so I have these spine problems on top of my MIs - which honestly is starting to really worry me...

I have osteoporosis and have two collapsed (compression fracture) vertebra. I have no idea when they collapsed. I lost an inch of height due to the compression. The tingling in your arm is probably due to nerves being compressed at the spinal column. I had this happen to me several years ago. The tingling went away after a short while. Have you had a DEXA scan to check your bone density?

[jrae]

it's an idea to have a bone-density test done, but I doubt I need to, as I've never broken a bone! well, I guess now I have. and I was a very active kid and played lots of sports, so it's surprising that I never did - and also surprising that my first one is a vertebrae!! but fairly certain it's from my car crash, based on the high rate of impact.

thanks for the idea though