Sometimes bodies just don't work...
Oct. 31st, 2013 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightlotusmoonA collection of replies I've given during a CP support group discussion about spastic muscle spasms that are more stiffness than twitching.
*
Oh, that fist thing? I get that every morning. I actually do say, "Fist clenches, impossible to willingly unclench it, must actively attempt to unclench fist, since brain is not making it work."
*
Augh, quad spasms. Hm. Um? (I have epilepsy, partial seizures, and it really is so not like that, so I'm thinking...)
*
Okay. How about... "It is like when your muscles tense up after you work out really really hard and you cannot for the life of you get them loose or relaxed, and it doesn't stop"?
*
Yes, NOT TWITCHY. Painfully clenched doesn't work?
*
Exactly - that's what I was trying to say. Your muscles are so tense and clenched tightly that you must consciously, willingly, actively attempt to move... rather than just moving. Example: You want to wiggle your fingers? They wiggle. It just happens. But with CP, it can't quite happen. You need to kind of force it. You need to tell your brain to make your body move.
I call it "microspasms" - you can't really see them, not like a twitch. But the spasm is so tight and small that it is more of a severe stiffness.
*
That twitchy spasm is probably more like myoclonic jerks, which are common. The non-twitchy spasm is more like the fierce stiffness and tightness one might get after working out at a gym for hours or lifting very heavy things (to put it in AB perspective I guess?). You know how people will say "Oh, I just got back from the gym or yoga or my workout class and now my arms can't move, I'm so stiff, ohh, I hurt so much!" and you just kind of... look at them? And you almost, almost want to say, "Yeah, I get that. Yeah." Because, you know, cerebral palsy with spasticity is almost like that except kind of forever Lulz? But you hold back. Because pain is pain is pain. I can't compare.
(Although I have known people who have told me, to my face, "You have no idea how much this hurts!" and I seriously bit the inside of my cheek.)
*
But yes, that extreme tense and clenched stiffness in which your muscles cannot work by themselves, unless you force them to. That is what I call it. :p
*
*
Oh, that fist thing? I get that every morning. I actually do say, "Fist clenches, impossible to willingly unclench it, must actively attempt to unclench fist, since brain is not making it work."
*
Augh, quad spasms. Hm. Um? (I have epilepsy, partial seizures, and it really is so not like that, so I'm thinking...)
*
Okay. How about... "It is like when your muscles tense up after you work out really really hard and you cannot for the life of you get them loose or relaxed, and it doesn't stop"?
*
Yes, NOT TWITCHY. Painfully clenched doesn't work?
*
Exactly - that's what I was trying to say. Your muscles are so tense and clenched tightly that you must consciously, willingly, actively attempt to move... rather than just moving. Example: You want to wiggle your fingers? They wiggle. It just happens. But with CP, it can't quite happen. You need to kind of force it. You need to tell your brain to make your body move.
I call it "microspasms" - you can't really see them, not like a twitch. But the spasm is so tight and small that it is more of a severe stiffness.
*
That twitchy spasm is probably more like myoclonic jerks, which are common. The non-twitchy spasm is more like the fierce stiffness and tightness one might get after working out at a gym for hours or lifting very heavy things (to put it in AB perspective I guess?). You know how people will say "Oh, I just got back from the gym or yoga or my workout class and now my arms can't move, I'm so stiff, ohh, I hurt so much!" and you just kind of... look at them? And you almost, almost want to say, "Yeah, I get that. Yeah." Because, you know, cerebral palsy with spasticity is almost like that except kind of forever Lulz? But you hold back. Because pain is pain is pain. I can't compare.
(Although I have known people who have told me, to my face, "You have no idea how much this hurts!" and I seriously bit the inside of my cheek.)
*
But yes, that extreme tense and clenched stiffness in which your muscles cannot work by themselves, unless you force them to. That is what I call it. :p
*
