Always shaking my foot

[valeriedl]

I'm always shaking my foot. Either up and down, like I'm taping it but not actually hitting it on the floor, or waving it back and forth. I don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time until someone tells me. My husband says I do it in my sleep too.

Could this be some type of side effect from the medicine or something to do with epilepsy?

[survivor]

I can really not tell whether it is due to side effect of medicine or not but I know that I have a friend who does this thing and she has no E, she has the habit of doing it!

[Aicila]

I started that when I started taking Vimpat. It drives me nuts but I am starting to get used to it. At first my legs would be really really sore but that is starting to fade too.

[valeriedl]

I take

Depakote
Tegretol
Keppra
Lamictal

All the generics

People only said something about it to me in about the last year and the neurologist has increased some of the dosages of some of these meds, which ones I don't remember.

I do it with my right foot and it's just little taps, not so bad that I'll end up with a sore leg. My husband said that any time I have a seizure I always turn my head to the right, that's why I didn't know if it might have something to do with the epilepsy or the meds.

Thanks everyone!

[travel bug]

I have the same thing, or at least something similar. With me, it usually happens when I'm trying to sleep or when I'm very tired. It's kind of like restless leg syndrome, but it isn't; I have that too and know what it feels like and this is different. I definitely notice when I have it because it drives me nuts! My right foot flaps vigorously up and down a few seconds at a time - sometimes just a few times and that's all, sometimes it happens several times a minute and goes on for hours. If I'm on my back or front, my foot flaps up and down, if I'm on my side, it usually flaps side to side.

This has happened since having a tumor removed from the left hemisphere of my brain near the area that controls my right leg. At first, I thought it was just a spasm, but I had other spasms after surgery, and all the others went away. I have noticed that it tends to be worse if I break down and have a diet drink with aspartame, or when I have too many carbs, but I don't think those things actually cause the problem, just aggravate it.

I asked my neurosurgeon if it could be some sort of seizure, and, without thinking about it much, he said it could be and suggested adding another drug. But I don't want to just throw more drugs at it if it isn't seizure related, I feel crappy enough:P I'm getting used to it, but I do worry that if it is seizure activity, I could be letting my brain create those pathways that will one day lead to worse seizures.

Sorry, didn't mean to ramble on so long

[valeriedl]

Don't worry about rambling on travel bug, I do it all the time.

I just love it when the dr's just say "let's put you on this TOO and see how it works".

The worst thing with the dr's giving me meds is a dr that I am (hopefully was) going to for my back, my PCP was pretty good with this too when it came to my back. They would give me pain meds, vicodon, to help with the back pain. I kept telling them that it wasn't helping with the pain at all, and this was after about 4 months of taking it. I actually stopped taking it on a daily basis a little after the first month because I know it's something that is very additive and I didn't want to be taking something that didn't work, so I only took it when my back was really hurting (still didn't do a thing for me though). The one dr was giving me shots in my back which helped some, but not a whole lot and then give me a pescription for the vicodon, even though I had told him they weren't helping.

I started having problems with other parts of my body that were probably related to the back problems so he wrote me a referal to see a dr that deals with more specific things like that. Hopefully this one will figure something out and fix it or at least try some other type of med that could help with it.

I have had the back problems for a good many years but it's only been within the last few years that it's gotten worse. Within the last year I've started to get pains that shoot down my leg and in the last few months my right calf has been numb. I don't know if that could have something to do with the foot shaking or not?

See travel bug - I do ramble on too

[iloveshelties]

I do this too!! drives my family NUTS!!! I have ALWAYS done this...way before anti-seizure meds...so I can't blame it on them!!!...lol...I have beena foot tapper from way back when...so, now that my family has wittnessed me having a seizure, they freak out when they see me shaking my foot...even the DOG freaks out when he sees me shaking my foot at night now! Great...I've got them ALL nuts now!!!

[Mono]

Hey Valeriedl, it can definitely be a side effect of the medication, which one I'm not sure though. I say this because I used to be on Abilify (not for epilepsy) and I felt like I was jumping out of my skin all the time. I just couldn't sit still at all. If I wasn't running around like mad I would be sitting on the couch shaking my leg, tapping my hands, whatever...just moving somehow. Needless to say I didn't stay on Abilify for long, it became unbearable - not so much the foot tapping but the overall need to be moving all the time. It was like I never got to rest.

Not sure how your doctor will suggest getting rid of it if it really is bothering you. You're on quite a few meds so it'd likely be process of elimination until you get off the right one. So I'd say likely your doc will just add something else to your regime to quell it. I know with Abilify that I had the option of going on Cogentin as well but because I was so anti meds at the time it was easier for my doctors to just change meds all together rather than argue with me about it.

All that said though...a lot of people do it for no reason at all.

[valeriedl]

Shaking my foot doesn't bother me, I don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time, it's everyone else that it drives crazy.

When my husband was going through his cancer therapy he was on a medicine, I don't remember what it was though, but he couldn't sit down. He was always up running around doing things. He'd mop the floor twice a week (which may have not been a bad thing) and just be up and down out of his chair doing goofy things all over the house. I told his dr to change that medicine or I was going to get a 2x4 and fix the problem. The dr took him off the med and the floor hasn't been moped since!

[travel bug]

I have had the back problems for a good many years but it's only been within the last few years that it's gotten worse. Within the last year I've started to get pains that shoot down my leg and in the last few months my right calf has been numb. I don't know if that could have something to do with the foot shaking or not?

Back pain really sucks! I used to have bad back pain that sometimes left me pretty much unable to move, and I had the shooting pains down the leg too. Fortunately, it would come and go and I never had to deal with it for more than a few days and then be fine for months in between so I never went to the doctor about it. Knock on wood, I haven't had anything more than minor back pain in several years. (Okay, I'm knocking on wood again just to be sure)

I really hope you can find some relief from the pain! Take care