This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

Hi my name is Emma and I just got diagnosed 2 weeks ago. I just started getting a tightness in my knees and im very worried. Does anyone else have this problem?
Thank you

welcome to the site emma can't say I have anything I would call knee tightness. what has been going on that led to your recent diagnosis?

You may have early signs of SPASTICITY - very, very common in MS. I take ZANAFLEX (Tizanidine Hcl 4 mg) at night to help control it. Takeing 1/2 a pill or less is a good idea then gong to a full 4g in about three weeks would be a good idea. YOU WILL fall asleep in about 20 min. You MUST get to bed by then. I learned the hard way when I "passed-out" while typing an email reply. It lowers blood pressure a huge amount. I do not take it if I am going to leave my house. I take a 1/4 or 1/2 one or twice a day. The next morning you will feel a lot less spastic in your legs. About 5 hours later the spasticity will return. Usually in RR MS it is worse in one leg.


Spasticity refers to feelings of stiffness and a wide range of involuntary muscle spasms (sustained muscle contractions or sudden movements). It is one of the more common symptoms of MS. Spasticity may be as mild as the feeling of tightness of muscles or may be so severe as to produce painful, uncontrollable spasms of extremities, usually of the legs. Spasticity may also produce feelings of pain or tightness in and around joints, and can cause low back pain. Although spasticity can occur in any limb, it is much more common in the legs.

jackD

*muscle* tightness I would associate with spasticity.. joint tightness not really. need more info.
if muscle spasticity, you could evaluate your magnesium intake from diet (mag is an essential nutrient .. often serum mag is low- to mid-normal in ms patients vs high-normal (or even higher) in healthy controls - make sure you get 600mg per day and not too many magnesium depleting foods/drinks in the mix)
most ppl don't get enough dietary mag. it can manifest in a wide variety of different ways.
if you decide to follow up re magnesium, there's lots of info the read up on re testing, interpreting results, food options, best supplemental forms and so on.
best thing about magnesium is that it helps support hundreds of other processes in the body as well, not just helping muscles relax.
of course it all depends what you mean by knee tightness

Thank you for your answers. It seems I have much to learn about this disease. I'm very glad I found this site

My concept of MS spasticity.

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It is my understanding that the human body works on the basis of a "double negative".

That is why MS folks have such a problem with spasticity.

The expanation for the above statements is that when we are at rest the brain is constantly sending out a signal to the legs/hands to "NOT Contract".

When the brain wants us to move (i.e contract our legs) it STOPS sending out the "do not contract" message.

It tells the body to NOT "NOT contract".(double negative) This came in very handy for our ancestors when it came to jumping out of the way of the attacking lion.

When we(MS folks) are sitting down - NOT actively using our leg/hands MS the signal to "NOT contract" gets "lost" on the way out and down the spine due to damage caused by "sclerosis" and our legs/hands slowly contract without our conscious knowldge.
What we could call our involuntary nervous system does this.

When we get up our VOLUNTARY nervous system takes over operation and sends the proper signal to control our muscle movements.(this usually takes about three steps to fully kick in) Of course this can become severely damaged and fail to function also in more advanced MS.

There are now some 4AP medications that can overcome this in many cases by increasing the nerve signal strength. A timed released version is required to prevent a high peak dosage from causing a seizure.

I hope this helps your understanding of MS Spasticity.

I take a range of "things" to stay relaxed. I take a very low dose of Zanaflex . The zanaflex is very sedating and it helps me to fall asleep.

I also suffered from severe leg cramps at night. Taking some Magnesium Citrate (two 200 mg) at night fixed that problem 100%.

jackD

Welcome to the site Emma

You will find much good info here. You might find it useful to use the search box both to do searches of all topics/terms and to search for topics/terms from particular member's posts.

When you mention tightness I immediately think of a need for magnesium, but I don't know enough about your situation to make any recommendations yet.
Their a lot of "ms symptoms" that are know to be caused by not having enough magnesium, whether it be not enough in the blood or, much more frequently, not enough in the rest of the body.
By the way, jimmylegs is sometimes referred to as our "resident nutritionist" Very knowledgeable indeed.

THX1138