Spasmophilia: symptoms, causes, to treatment

Definition

What is spasmophilia?

Spasmophilia is a motor nerve disorder that shows abnormal sensitivity to electrical or mechanical stimuli. Spasmophilia is not a disorder, nor a disorder.

Spasmophilia is often characterized by muscle stiffness, cramps, or twitching in certain parts of the body that is followed / preceded by an anxiety attack or panic attack. If the condition is severe, muscle stiffness can cause spasms.

How common is this condition?

Spasmophilia may not be a term that sounds familiar to you. However, based on preliminary observational data at RSUP Dr. Kariadi Semarang, spasmophilia patients are generally dominated by young people of productive age, between the ages of 14-35 years.

Signs and symptoms

What are the signs and symptoms of spasmophilia?

A person who has spasmophilia will usually experience both psychological and physical symptoms. In general, the physical symptoms that people with spasmophilia often experience are muscle stiffness, twitching of the muscles in the hands / feet, muscle cramps - in the stomach, back and neck, and a feeling of tingling in the chest. But specifically, the form of symptoms experienced by sufferers depends on the organs that are affected, such as:

If the affected part is the chest, it will experience cramps in the chest muscles. The symptoms experienced will tend to be the same as coronary heart disease, such as chest pain on the left, difficulty breathing, increased heart rate, hyperventilation, and profuse sweating.
If the neck muscles are affected, they will experience stiffness in the neck, headache, easy sweating, anxiety, depression, and seizures.
If you are attacked by the stomach wall muscles, you will experience symptoms similar to heartburn or gastritis, such as decreased appetite, heartburn, nausea, and vomiting.

Meanwhile, the psychological symptoms often experienced by people with spasmophilia are panic attacks, depression and anxiety. This can happen because people with spasmophilia tend to have prejudice against something. People with spasmophilia also often feel excessive fear of something that will happen.

They always think that the things they fear will really happen. As a result, they are more likely to experience insomnia, restless sleep and nightmares.

Cause

What causes spasmophilia?

Doctors often associate spasmophilia with hypocalcemia, which is a condition in which calcium levels in the blood decrease.

Causes of calcium deficiency include low calcium intake, diarrhea, vitamin D deficiency, hypoparathyroidism (lack of parathyroid hormone), hypoalbumin (lack of albumin protein) due to chronic liver disease (cirrhosis), malnutrition (lack of protein calories), pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas). , chronic renal failure, and sepsis (severe generalized infection).

Apart from poor diet, spasmophilia can also be caused by heredity. The most common form of heredity is the panic attacks experienced by the parents.

Treatment

The information provided is not a substitute for medical advice. ALWAYS consult your doctor.

How to diagnose this condition?

To be sure if the muscle spasm you are experiencing is spasmophilia, your doctor will need to run a spasmophilia test such as:

Chvostek's Sign

Is an examination by touching the cheek or hitting lightly 2 cm in front of the ear tract (the part of the ear that protrudes a little in the cheek / sideburn area). Contraction of the facial muscles is a positive sign.

Depending on the calcium level, a stratified response will occur. Initially, the twitch will occur at the corners of the mouth, then the nose, eyes, and facial muscles.

Trousseau's sign

This procedure is done by making ischemia in the arm area when measuring blood pressure. This test aims to see the average systolic and diastolic by maintaining the blood pressure for a few minutes. Trousseau's sign more specific than Chvostek's sign, but has incomplete sensitivity.

Blood test

Your doctor may order blood tests to check the levels of calcium and magnesium in your blood.

Normal blood magnesium levels are 1.8 to 2.2 milligrams per deciliter (mg / dL). Meanwhile, normal blood calcium levels are 8.8–10.4 milligrams per deciliter (mg / dL) or 2.2–2.6 millimoles per liter (mmol / L).

Investigation with EMG (electromyography)

Electromyography or EMG is a diagnostic procedure to assess the health of the muscles and nerve cells that control them. EMG results can reveal nerve dysfunction, muscle dysfunction, or problems with the transmission of signals from nerves to muscles.

Motor neurons send out electrical signals that cause muscles to contract. The EMG uses small devices called electrodes to translate these signals into graphs, sounds, or numerical values, which are then interpreted by specialists.

This examination is graded according to the level of calcium in the blood, namely: (1) Grade 1: twitching at the corner of the lips, (2) Grade 2: twitching in the nose, (3) Grade 3: eye twitching, and (4) Grade 4: twitching of the facial muscles. This examination is related to biperventilation (rapid breathing). And, without this examination, the diagnosis of Spasmophilia cannot be determined.

The result of the examination is that you know the grade of spasmophilia you have, namely:

Mild (1: positive 1)
Medium (II: positive 2),
Weight (III: positive 3)
Very severe (IV: positive 4)

What are the treatment options for treating spasmophilia?

In general, people with spasmophilia can be treated on an outpatient basis or hospitalized and given drugs containing calcium / magnesium and sedatives.

In addition, things that need to be considered for people with spasmophilia are eating foods that contain lots of calcium, such as cow's milk, eggs, fish, tofu, vegetables and fruit, regular exercise, and relaxation with massage / physiotherapy.

In addition, it is recommended that you eat foods rich in magnesium and potassium to supplement your calcium intake. Most can be eaten raw or lightly cooked. Quoted from the journal The Theory of Endobiogeny, the following foods are good for treating spasmophilia: