Muscle Spasms/Dehydration

caretheaton

Hello all!

I had an interesting experience this weekend after a long & active day. I wanted to see if anyone else has ever experienced something like this before.

Saturday was a very busy day. I ran the Komen Race for the Cure 5k in the morning, then my fiance and I spent the next 12 hours on our feet enjoying some of the activities our city had to offer that day.

About an hour after falling asleep that night, I was woken up by a cramp in my left hip. I have very cranky hips, and have had cramps in this hip before, so this wasn't too alarming. But then I started having spasms in the back of both of my thigh making my legs jerk so bad that it woke up my fiance. I sat up, and after a while my whole body started to spasm and jerk, as if I were having a really bad case of the shivers. My shoulders were shrugging, teeth were chattering, and I felt like my whole body was quivering inside. I was still able to hold a conversation and could walk, but my legs were slightly numb, making me feel as if I were walking on clouds.

The intense sensations came in waves. I would have a really bad "shiver" that lasted for a few minutes, then it would subside to where I was just quivering for a few minutes. I thought maybe I was having a panic attack (which I'm sure became part of it because I was freaking. the hell. out.) so I tried taking slow and deep breaths, but found it impossible to take in a breath from my diaphram. I have never experienced anything like this before, and my big fear was that I was on the verge of a seizure. Granted, I've never had a seizure so I'm not entirely sure what that would be like either, but after about 15 minutes of this my fiance and I decided I should head to the emergency room.

The doctors heard my story and immediately thought I was dehydrated (looking back on the day, I probably only had about two bottles worth of water the whole day). They hooked me up to an IV and ran some blood work just to make sure levels were fine and that there wasn't an infection starting somewhere.

The symptoms went away entirely after a couple of hours. Woke up the next day and felt extremely tired the next day, but made sure to drink LOTS of water, and I've been perfectly fine since.

Since I didn't have any other expected dehydration symptoms (headache, dizziness, thirst, dry skin) I asked the doctor is this was typical. He said it wasn't the most common symptom, but everybody reacts differently.

Although I've felt fine since leaving the ER, it's still nagging at me that something else might have been going on as well. So I am just curious if anything like this has happened to anyone else.

Thanks!