Sorry for the late reply! I have now activated notifications from Longecity.
Just quickly scanned through the thread so apologies if I missed it, did your blood test include serum B12 level?
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No, I don't think a serum B12 test was done.
I have however done a Cobalamin test in the past (I think that's the same as B12?), with good values.
I also supplement with a multivitamin since at least a year back that contains 120 % RDI.
I'd like to really delve into this further. It seems to me like Piracetam caused a sort of peripheral short circuit. Think of it like PTSD. Emotions are stored in our peripheral nerves - our bodies being like the hard drive for the brain stem. When a traumatic incident happens, your body remembers it and keeps those emotions stored as potential energy, like capacitors or batteries in a circuit.
This correlates quite well. In fact, it lines up with what the doctor has said... this being psychosomatic. Sure kainate receptor and muscarinic receptor agonism can cause excitotoxicity enough to cause twitching but just knowing or believing that doesn't help the problem.
What you need is a neuroplastic exercise to help you through this twitching. That's what I'm calling it... But it's really just therapy. Works the same way. Pick your poison: CBT, EFT, NLP, acupuncture, massage therapy, music therapy, learning a difficult sport, finding a new religion, etc.
What I need are two lists: one that makes the twitching worse, one that seems to make it better. I need everything from day of the week, year, month, weather, physical activity, mental activity, social activity down to your diet, supplementation, hydration habits, and sleep.
Help us help you.
If nothing seems to affect it, list that stuff anyway. Maybe there will be a red flag no one has considered. Hide nothing. This stuff is anonymous, so you'll just be hurting yourself and frustrating everyone else by holding back.
The fact that it's getting worse is a sign that you are somehow reinforcing the twitches, as bizarre as that sounds. Some type of residual stressor, whether the anxiety of this or another thing linked to it, has caused this to never go away, so your nervous system can't let go and is no longer resilient, bouncing back. Something is broken, but it is so familiar, it's become your new normal. That's why I think you need some type of learning and rejuvenating experience - sort of naturally release that built up tension and jumpstart the healing process and become plastic again.
Neuroplasticity works both ways, so I'm not surprised that a drug known for enhancing neuroplasticity helped you achieve a new normal. Let's push reset. If people with a fraction of their optic nerve can regain balance after drugs destroyed it, you can gain your freedom from twitches.
@
devinthayer Thanks for caring about this issue. It has really weighed a lot on me, because it feels like I have destroyed something in my body, and caused problems for myself that never existed before. Also, I do feel cognitively worse off these days – but I can't say 100 % that it's due to the Piracetam.
I don't think that the "traumatic incident" had very much to do with me getting these twitches (fasciculations). Although it is a strange coincidence that I noticed my first twitches in my eye after that, it was only after a good few weeks (closer to a month or more) that I noticed that I had fasciculations all over my body.
I have been in some nasty situations before, and I don't have a very anxious personality, so I would be very surprised if the trauma had a major impact. Still, we can't write that theory off. Perhaps it could be true that Piracetam increased neuroplasticity and created "a new normal" – but does it really increase neuroplasticity that much?
During the last few years
after taking Piracetam, I have been through some crazy stuff, followed by some calmer times. But surprisingly, the fasciculations have been quite constant during all this time. I can't say that any life event, good or bad, has affected them in any noticeable way!
A) I was in a BPD relationship for close to a year which was living hell. This was one year after taking Piracetam.
B) I had a seizure during the same time period while taking a quite hot bath. I was prescribed with an antiepileptic for this.
C) After that hellish year, I started taking pretty good care of myself by getting enough sleep, good nutrition and meditating.
TBH I think the fasciculations have been pretty much as frequent and intense throughout both a hellish year and 2-3 "calm" ones. Perhaps it's a bit worse today than when I started the OP, but it feels like most of that happened after the years following the BPD relationship. It was very intense and crazy, but during that time I didn't notice an increase in fasciculations.
However, a while after the BPD relationship, I noticed that I had developed involuntary movements in larger limbs (feet, hands, fingers, torso) that aren't fasciculations. Fasciculations seem to come entirely from the autonomic nervous system and I can have them in the weirdest places. The "larger limb movements" feel more voluntary – even if they aren't – and I think they are a result of stored tension that I now can't get rid of, even though I'm calm and resting. I definitely don't think that I would have developed these limb movements, had it not been for both the Piracetam fasciculations which already caused psychological stress – and was then amplified by the BDP relationship.
After getting the bath seizure, I was prescribed with an antiepileptic for one year. It did not make the twitches go away (nor was it really intended for that purpose). I had child epilepsy which last was active many, many years ago – to the degree that I was proclaimed epilepsy-free. It may be that it has been resting during all these years. Maybe because I had that condition in the past, Piracetam woke alive something that it shouldn't. TBH I had almost forgotten about my epilepsy, so when I decided to take Piracetam that wasn't something that I reflected on. But in hindsight it may have been very stupid.
When it comes to the short-term, I haven't noticed that anything like meditation or exercise makes the twitches go away. I think I have them even when sleeping – if I wake in the middle of the night with a low heart rate, I still have them.
I take pretty good care of myself through meditation and having a good daily routine, but I don't exercise more than occasionally atm (intending to start frequently this summer). Stress/adrenaline etc can however make twitches become a bit worse in my face area with lingering nerve twitches. Things like lots of caffeine, stress, can start these lingering extraneous twitches, but they usually reside after after a few minutes. My belief is that stress adds an iced layer on the cake, but doesn't contribute much to "twitch baseline" – the twitches are always ongoing and very autonomous.
So yeah, there are definitely some potential psychological components here – as are there potentially neurological ones. I'm still quite sad and hopeless after the BPD relationship, but I went to CBT and EMDR therapy for a while and that helped me getting to terms with what had happened. I wouldn't say that I'm
seriously depressed, but I am unhappy. I personally believe that the psychological impacts may have
amplified the physical/neurological ones – but I don't think it's "entirely in my mind" so to speak. I have been a pretty self-composed person in the past and I have always had pretty good nerves. In the end, I think the Piracetam is definitely responsible to a high degree, and that's corroborated by other anecdotes by people on the internet describing how they also developed twitches.
I am however grateful for your advice and I do honestly believe that I need a "reset" in life. Exercise is definitely the most lacking part right now, and I am considering trying to get any supplement and/or medication help I can get from my doc and trusted sources.
Edited by YOLF, 03 June 2016 - 07:26 PM.
