Ok I got up this morning and felt the tremors,not nice.I took my girl to school as I needed a word with the headmaster.No she is a good girl and was not in trouble.
I started to crawl home with my crutches.My right leg would not straighten fully,my right foot painfully turned inwards and could not put my foot flat to the floor.I struggled home and still cannot straighten my leg or put my foot flat to the floor.
I belive its the MS.will this go away or is this going to be my future of not being able to walk and limbs twisted and cannot straighten arms and legs?
Hi Charlie Hope you got home ok. I know this sounds simplistic and may not work, have ou tried massaging your calf, this works for me sometimes. Do you ave meds for this? Or are you expected to live with it until it wears off. Mike x
Rubbing dont work,I have to wait for it just go/ease on its own.I have Baclofen 20 mg three times a day and Amitriptyline 40 mg at night.I have been getting it a lot but not this bad.My its all the way up the back of my leg,like real bad cramp and my foot is the worst.To stand it pains me more.
Yes I struggled home and sitting it eased a little but as soon as I stand up its at it agin.
Im waiting for my physio to call hopefully this week,to see what she can do for me.
I was told by my physio that one of the problems with ms was that your muscles often didn’t relax when you want them to. This can lead to tightness in the calf muscles which can twist your feet.
He gave me stretching exercises and I will attempt to explain them in text…
Stand 2-3ft from a wall (arms length) and put one leg out behind you pressing the foot firmly on the ground.
Bend your other kneed forward and support yourself on the wall with your hands.
Keep the stretching leg straight and your foot on the ground, if your foot is not flat it won’t work. Push the stretching leg as far back as you can, all the time keeping your foot firmly pushed onto the ground.
Keep your head up don’t look to the floor face the wall.
Hold the position for a minute, you should feel your calf muscle tingling which is the muscle working out the tightness within it. At the end of the minute, change legs and repeat.
When I do this I do feel a difference in the movement of my feet, they loosen up and don’t twist so much (my right foot tends to penguin out otherwise).
I don’t know if this is your problem, or if you can stand well enough to do these exercises but it’s worth a try
I get awful spasms too. I find that the stretching exercises Frost described really helpful as long as I am not in severe spasm at the time I’m doing them. To help relieve the spasm before tryig the stretches have you tried a hot pack on the affected muscles? I find that can give enormous relief.
Also I find that breathing very slowly and deeply and consciously tryig to relax the muscel (yeah, I know it sounds daft!!) can help ease the pain if not the actual spasm.
And to reassure you, NO, it does not mean you will spend the rest of your life with twisted limbs etc. Spasms can come and go but are usually fairly short lived and do ease off fairly quickly. Try and think of it as just a VERY bad episode of cramp… not as a permanent affliction.
I just spent 2 weeks unable to move due to severe spasms in hospital with the bed reclined and my knees raised as I couldn’t straighten my legs… It was horrifically painful and a very extreme example of what spasms can do to a person and my legs are back to being straight and weight bearing again. In the words of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “Don’t Panic!”
