Muscle spasms

I’m having a miserable day after an almost sleepless night. I’m getting muscle spasms/stiffness in places I’ve never had it before: my toes and my side mostly. Kept me awake most of the night and plagued me all day. I’m also not getting much benefit from the Madopar today. I take it at 4 hour intervals and after it has kicked in I expect about 2.5 hours of benefit. But today I’m barely feeling the benefit at all. I’m feeling rather scared that this might not be temporary On the other hand, it is a miserable wet and cold day and I have noticed before that the weather seems to have some effect on the severity of my symptoms.

Hi @Jane_L,

I’m really sorry to hear that you’re having a rough day. We have same general tips on how to ease muscle cramps on our website which you can find here - https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/information-and-support/muscle-cramps-and-dystonia. However, if you are not finding your medication effective, you may need to raise this with your GP or Parkinson’s nurse so that they can review it a possible increase it if necessary.

If you’d prefer to speak to someone about this, please give our helpline a call as soon as you can for more support on 0808 800 0303.

Best wishes,
Reah

Hi Jane,

I use Professional Vibrating Muscle Massager to releive my spasms, which I believe are rather related to my gait issues then to the medicine I take. Still, going over my stiff muscles using the massager for a few minutes twice a day seem to help. And the good thing is I can use it by myself, no help needed…

Thanks for that tip. My symptoms were definitely weather related and I improved as the outside temperature got warmer. It is a bit puzzling, since my symptoms seem worse even when I avoid going outside, but maybe we need to keep our central heating thermostat turned up.