Help! Knees buckling occasional twitching

[Manxie1982]

I’m 8 weeks postpartum and I’ve got terrible anxiety about my health. I’ve convinced myself that I’ve got ALS or Motor Neurone disease! My knees have been cracking and when I walk upstairs I’ll occasionally get a sharp pain that will require me to shift my weight quickly to my other leg. I have also had occasional twitching in various body parts. I’ve seen a doctor and he said he thinks it’s mechanical but I’ve not been able to stop worrying. I have suffered from health anxiety for as long as I can remember but I’m out of control with worry at the moment. Did anyone else get this postpartum?

I had huge problems with my joints after my first child. I was convinced I had rheumatoid arthritis for months but all tests came back clear. It's your hormones going nuts and lack of sleep, can make you go a bit crazy. Try not to worry too much, it's completely normal and it'll pass.

Pain in knees can arise from poor posture or problems in hips or even tightness from feet.

Muscle twitching can also be benign or caused by a neurological condition.

My DC has the same symptoms as you alongside muscle spasticity etc and has a condition called hereditary spastic paraplegia.

I would suggest using you tube to follow exercise that strengthen the core, increase flexibility in hips and feet and especially hamstrings. Monitor any improvements or even if it makes the symptoms worse and record them.

Health anxiety is horrid and maybe exacerbated by post partum hormones.

But I also know you can be convinced something is wrong and actually there is.

If you can show you've personally taken all the usual steps to improve those symptoms it's easier to get them to listen.

Your knees are probably as good as anyone else's so it's probably not helpful for people to post about their knee issues

Your issue is your health anxiety so that's the thing that needs concentrating on

Fwiw my knees 'go' occasionally. I think I'm slightly hypermobile. Pregnancy hormones caused me to be very hypermobile for a long time after birth, which is why I had loads of joint problems. It sounds like your main issue is anxiety, which a bugger to get through. I have lots of health related anxiety myself so I sympathise. Try CBT and meditation techniques. Yoga is also really good.
To reassure you, everything you describe sounds perfectly normal considering you're postpartum. It's a tough time but it does get easier x

Thanks so much for your reassurance, it really makes a difference. Anxiety is definitely my biggest problem I think, I spend so much of my day listening to my body, I drive myself crazy. The doc said he thought my twitching is fatigue which is by far the most likely scenario, I just can’t seem to let that settle my mind :(

Don't take this as absolute and google but I'm sure low magnesium can cause muscle twitches. You may need a multi vit.

You aren't far past giving birth and sharing your nutrients with another human for 9 months prior to that.

@itsgettingweird yes, that's exactly it. I felt so low on everything after having both my girls. I was iron anaemic, low vit D, low B12, low calcium, was ridiculous! I was hungry constantly too. I bought a magnesium supplement as well amongst many other things but eventually got back on track.

Oh you poor thing. I understand completely as a fellow health anxiety sufferer! I became convinced I had MND after I had my son for very similar reasons. Turned out it was likely a combination of stress, exhaustion, vit depletion from cluster feeding my son and high relaxin from being pregnant (softens and loosens joints.) The chance of a woman your age having MND is minuscule honestly. It’s also one of those conditions with vague early symptoms which could be stress induced (apparently a very high number of medical students refer themselves for MND testing as they read about condition and then it’s so easy to imagine they are experiencing muscle twitching etc. That study has always stayed with me as shows the power of anxiety!)

I’m sure you’re absolutely fine. In fact I know you are. Take care of yourself.

Thanks so much @Foreverbaffled I got teary reading your response because it’s so nice to get reassurance. My little one is cluster feeding a lot, I even had sore knees with my first baby, the twitching is just such a horrible symptom for anxiety because it doesn’t let you forget what you’re worried about, I sit to try and relax and then when I feel the twitches I just spiral again. My twitches are in lots of different places which makes it even less likely to be MND related but my mind just won’t absorb that info for some reason. I’ve got some help coming in on Monday to entertain my 2 year old and I’ll take multivitamins and hopefully things will start to calm down in the next week or so. Thanks so much for taking the time to reassure me, can’t tell you how much it helps

I bet you anything it’s low vitamin D levels. Have you had them checked recently? You can send off for test kids.

You’re welcome @Manxie1982, my heart goes out to you. By the way the muscle twitches with MND occur because the muscle is literally dying which is why it occurs in one place (one muscle group/limb at a time) so the fact you’re having them in multiple places basically rules it out.

But anyway take care, it sounds like you’ve got a good plan going forward