What causes muscle twitching and when you should worry

Though many people experience muscle twitching, it’s often incorrectly identified as a muscle spasm.

Both are involuntary contractions of a muscle but aren’t the same thing.

A muscle twitch is a short contraction that sometimes occurs repeatedly — think eye twitching. Such movement can be uncomfortable and inconvenient, but it isn’t usually painful.

Muscle spasms are prolonged muscle contractions that are often painful.

In many cases, the same practices that prevent or end muscle spasms also can help prevent or end muscle twitches — though experts say it isn’t possible for most people to avoid either completely.

Our body’s nervous system is constantly telling our muscles what to do without our having to consciously thinking about each action. Such messages are controlled by our central nervous system and by the peripheral nervous system or PNS. The PNS is the part of our nervous system that feeds information into our brain and carries the signals that move our muscles.

Because these nerves are constantly triggering muscle movements day after day, they can be very sensitive and sometimes misfire.

“Almost always, this is due to motor nerves that send signals from the spine or brain to the receptors,” says Dr. Loren Fishman, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Columbia University.

He says different factors can interfere with how these brain signals are sent to different muscle groups, which can lead to involuntary twitching.

Such factors and others include dehydration, stress, medication, caffeine, a pinched nerve, damaged nerve cells and a lack of sleep.

More rarely, muscle twitching can be affected by medical conditions such as Serotonin syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Isaacs’ syndrome and kidney disease.

Fishman says twitching also can be linked to an anxiety disorder or as a result of a nutritional deficiency.

“Twitching can occur when your basic electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, are abnormally high or low,” Fishman says.

Dr. Anthony Beutler, an associate medical director of sports medicine with Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, says it can be helpful to think of some such factors or conditions as causing “short circuits in the muscle’s nervous system.”

Because such muscle responses aren’t voluntary, it can be difficult to predict when twitching will occur or to prevent it from happening. Beutler says “there is no single or foolproof way to stop twitches,” but offers a few recommendations that have proven can be helpful. These include stretching one’s muscles, engaging in exercises that contract affected muscle groups or medications recommended by a healthcare professional.

Fishman says maintaining a healthy diet and drinking plenty of water can help you naturally get enough electrolytes to prevent or ease symptoms of muscle twitching.

“Activities that lightly use and soothe the muscles and cause your emotions to relax can also be helpful,” he says, including yoga, walking and meditation.

Knowing when muscle twitching is a problem can be difficult to ascertain since many things can contribute to it happening. But it’s rarely serious, often passes on its own and usually isn’t connected to chronic health conditions. So, in most circumstances, experts say muscle twitching isn’t something to be overly concerned about.

But if twitching persists, spreads or gets progressively worse, Beutler advises seeing a doctor to rule out anything worrisome.

Read more at usatoday.com