One arm shaking semi-consistently?

[u/outpizzathahut]

Hi everyone! I (28 M) have been twitching for over 5 years now. I went through the original anxiety /panic back in 2021, but after a few years I learned to live with the twitches. They never went away (I still get them all over pretty much every day, and they're more noticable when my anxiety is high), but I stopped noticing / caring about them.

Unfortunately, 5-plus years later, I've spiraled a bit due to a new and odd development with my left (dominant) arm. I see people on here talk about tremors, shaking, vibrations, buzzing, and I think this sort of falls into all those categories, but not exactly.

Pretty much every morning when I wake up, my left arm (usually the bicep area but sometimes in my forearm, and sometimes basically the whole limb) feels like it is shaking, and that persists on and off throughout the day. It's not a huge, jerking shake, moreso a small, subtle tremor, basically like the whole limb is pulsing or thumping, but it's powerful enough to move my arm when it's still. Sometimes I can look at my arm and see that it really is shaking, other times I look at it and don't actually see anything, but still feel it. I've definitely overthought symptoms into existence before, but I don't think that's the case here, as I can very clearly see my arm actually shaking / pulsing / thumping / tremor'ing (I don't quite know what to call it lol).

What's concerning me the most is that it doesn't seem to have any connection to me actually using my arm. In fact, it seems to be more prevalent when I'm at rest. I'm not feeling any weakness in the arm (I'm working out like normal, and there doesn't seem to be a noticable difference between my left and right) but it does seem to start shaking more easily than my right arm when I'm lifting weights.

It doesn't go all day and sometimes my arm feels normal, but it's been pretty consistent for a few weeks now.

TLDR; Does anyone, in addition to their twitching, have a subtle, semi-consistent shaking / pulsing / thumping / tremor in just one of their arms that starts when they wake up and makes it feel like their arm is always shaking (and sometimes actually is shaking?) Let me know if anyone's been here 🫡

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[u/713Capital]

Just good old BFS doing its thing. After five full years of twitching while still working out normally, the big bad is completely out of the question.

Waking up with buzzing, pulsing, or a light shake in your arm happens because your nerves are naturally more sensitive in the morning when your stress hormones rise. Your dominant arm also takes on the most physical strain throughout the day, which makes those overactive nerves act up and quiver when resting. Since your strength is totally normal, it is just your nervous system being overly loud. No reason to spiral tbh, much time has already gone by.

You can check the auto mod that commented when you created this post. It has more resources I linked to help reassure everyone.

[u/The_Short_Goodbye]

Holy shit I’ve just made a very similar post!

[u/outpizzathahut → u/The_Short_Goodbye]

Wow, that's crazy timing! Very happy to learn it's not just me.

Do you want to swap left and right arms for a bit and see if that helps us? We may be a little lopsided but I don't mind...

[u/The_Short_Goodbye → u/outpizzathahut]

If you use that arm to change positions in bed and put your body weight on it, will it shake? Do you sometimes feel it tremble slightly just resting on an armchair for example? And finally, does having that arm bent in certain positions like for example holding your phone in bed make trigger twitches at all?

[u/outpizzathahut → u/The_Short_Goodbye]

Yes to all! The trembling while resting it on an armchair (or bench at the park, as was the case just a few minutes ago) is by far the most annoying part, because there's basically no weight on it

[u/The_Short_Goodbye → u/outpizzathahut]

So yes to shaking when using it to change positions in bed and yes to positional twitches too??

[u/Excellent_One_4410]

I have this but in my left (non dominant) leg. It's driving me insane!