Uncomfortable muscle and back pain after a seizure

[bilkie]

Hi everyone, I really hope you can help me.

I had a seizure a couple of weeks ago. Never had one before. An ambulance came round and I ended up at the hospital.

Afterwards, I had severe muscle and back pains. The first few days it was so bad. It felt like I'd gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson and then sat on by five sumo wrestlers. I could barely walk.

Over the past couple of weeks, the pain has slowly eased but it's not gone. It's now at a standstill. Not getting better, not getting worse. I'm not able to function as I could before. I can't walk long distances, can't lift heavy things, can't bend over...etc.. If I do, I get these really strange pains at the side of my stomach. I don't know what it is. It's a sharp, throbbing pain. It goes away once I go and lay down on my bed.

Another issue is my back. For the past week, I have been waking up at 3 or 4am with really bad pains in my spine. It hurts so much. The only thing that stops the pain is some strong Tylenol. I'm then able to go back to sleep. I don't know why this pain only occurs in the middle of the night. Maybe it's because I've been laying flat on my bed for many hours prior to waking up?

I don't know what to do. I just want the pains to go away so that I can get back to my normal life. Right now I just feel so dead.

 

[epileric]

Welcome bilkie

Sorry to hear about your seizure. Some of them are pretty torturous. For your muscles have you tried different temperatures, cold then hot? Never leave the cold on too long though. At least you didn't bite your tongue.

I know during a seizure my erector spinae muscles (that connect to the vertebrae in the back) flex rhythmically. We can't do that voluntarily but it would explain why your sore in certain places. If your back hurts when sleeping try putting a pillow under your knees if you sleep on your back. If you sleep on your side then put a pillow under your top knee so that the knee doesn't rest on the bed. A teacher showed us how your back muscles can be stretched by making one of the students stand with her back against the wall then trying to make her right knee touch wall on her left side. That's basically what we do when we're on our side & bring one knee up.

Hope that helps.
Also, I Hope you don't mind but I moved your post to the "foyer" so we can all welcome you.

 

[Nakamova]

Hi Bilkie, welcome!

I'm very familiar with those back pains. It can take awhile for the muscles to heal, especially the ones after the very first seizure. I had been a stomach sleeper, but had to learn to sleep on my back to avoid the pain of that position. You might want to try taking the Tylenol before you go to sleep, to help ward off the pain.

I found it was very helpful to see a physical therapist. She did ultrasound which relieved some of the pain, and gave me gentle exercises to do to gradually heal the muscles. In addition to what Eric mentions above, you can do "cat and camel", where you are on all fours and gently arch your back ("camel") and then gently stretch and release it ("cat"), all while breathing slowly. The physical therapist also gave advice on things like getting in and out of car (turn your whole body first, rather than twisting at the knees).

I assume they did an X-ray at the ER to make sure nothing was broken, but your pains persist, you should see you doctor to make sure nothing was missed.

Best,
Nakamova

 

[douglas]

Hi bilkie and welcome to the forums

The sore muscles is sort of normal after you have a grand mal seizure. the back pains i dont think so. did you lose conciousness? did you fall on something? did you check to see if you have brusing from a fall. definatly get it checked out.

also, having one seizure does not automatically mean you have epilepsy nor does it mean you will have anther again. once you have 3 or 4, then you fall into the 90% chance bracket.

 

[petero]

that's a long time for muscle pain to endure for just cramps etc

I wonder if you might have pulled a muscle out of place when you were seizing
especially in your back there are a lot of little knobbies and processes protruding from your spine, accompanied by a lot of tendons and ligaments

when seizing your muscles can contort your body into positions it is not normally in, or ever in, which means these ligaments etc could derail, so to speak

you might want to check with your doc, check with a chiropractor, and look into yoga to strengthen the spinal alignment

I'm pretty sure I've had a few sleep seizures like you're talking about: almost unable to stand, with nauseating migraines (I live alone, and don't have an EEG at home so idk for certain), and back and neck feeling like Tyson's punching bag

but the pain subsides usually after a couple days tops
but then I do a lot of stretching throughout the day (to help ease out spasms and tics that tend to happen), yoga type of stuff, and have always been very flexible

 

[petero]

if you're on epilepsy meds you might want to check drug interactions with ibuprofen (tylenol)
I'm on phenytoin and can't take ibuprofen b/c of drug interactions
I will take acetaminophen and aspirin

 

[Dignan]

I had a seizure in February of this year and had similar issues. It has been over 5 mos and my back is still sore. It was very bad early on and gradually improved, but has sort of plateaued.

I've tried just about everything except an MRI, and all I can say is that sometimes it takes a very long time to heal.

I can tell you one I had many years ago where my chest/sternum was very sore and that took 3 or 4 mos to completely heal also, so it is definitely not out of the ordinary.

If you're concerned its more than muscular then I recommend seeing your GP and getting an x ray done just to rule out an fractures. Thats what I did.

Also, as long as the pain is more soreness and not acute in nature, I recommend moving around as much as possible, as long as you can take the pain. I seem to be better when I try to exercise (even if I'm sore) than if I sit and try to let it heal. The sitting still seems to make it worse (which may be why you are so sore after sleeping all night). Your bed may be too soft as well.

But check with the GP first. You don't want to stretch and exercise if something is broken..