Help Brain tremors inside my head causing severe sleep depreviation

Wow! So good to hear of other people suffering from similar things.

I came off birth control in October last year and a month later started feeling my pulse in my head constantly. It then developed to a loud buzzing noise and weird sensations in my head like an elastic band was being pinged or my brain was shaking from side to side. All on the left side.

I have had my ears syringed and seen an ENT who ruled out ear damage and just told me I have tinnitus but no reason why. Had hormones checked and all normal.

Been to see a neurologist recently who says he doesn't think the buzzing is connected but the weird trembling sensations could be occiptal neuralgia and has referred me for a nerve block. I don't think the symptoms tie up with this but willing to give it a go!! I will let you know if the injections help!

I have suffered with anxiety in the past but like others on here have said, mine is there constantly even when I am at my most relaxed and the trembling sensations actually wake me up in the night. I think anxiety related symptoms would come and go??

I can feel the trembling in the day and hear the buzzing but only if I am in a quiet room, Mainly notice it at night as soon as I close my eyes. 

I haven't had one night without these symptoms since October and it is so distressing. No relief!

Making me completely miserable especially as nobody seems to have a clue but here's hoping the nerve block works for the trembling sensations at least and then will tackle the buzzing.....

Getting acupuncture too but not helping so far. 

Hope you are all ok! 

56 year old male RN here. Many of the same symptoms, mental fog, occasional internal head buzzing, sometimes i wake and my entire body feels trembly, vertigo sometimes but for years i have walked around in a kind of twilight but it usually only lasts a few hours after i get up. Lately my BP shot up from my normal 130/82 to 160/100. I finally went to my cardiologist and he admitted me to the hospital after an ECG showed an issue in the vicinity of my left circumflex artery. The heart cath I had showed no blockages anywhere. After ~8 hours in the hospital though my BP and HR went back to normal without any change in meds????! I'm 24 hours post cath as I write this. Took a nap and my brain started buzzing. I also should note that i have 100% left vertebral artery blockage (4 main vessels feed your brain, two carotids, in the front, two vertebrals, in the back.)

I sometimes get good sleep but occasionally I have the symptoms so apparently I’m not as bad off as some of you ...yet. I hope we get some answers.

Mark Bates RN

Baton Rouge, La.

thanks for this thread i don't feel like I'm going crazy.. i have same symptoms its hard to sleep sometimes coz of the feeling, i tried different positions, pray a lot & take communion every day. i did a lot of research i usually follow earth clinic site testimonials treatment. i took high dose vit B complex. coq10, magnesium, potassium& bergamot there's some relief initially and the symptoms worsen like last night with fasciculations on legs, arms but the exact description for the head symptoms will be the same feeling when you put your head on the window or car door while engine is running. its very frustrating at night but i feel like in the morning when i wake up the symptoms disappear. Btw I also had ANA test which was negative. i have pending neuro consult this week but i want to make sure if its just overload from all the meds i've been taking. i researched that meclizine, benadryl, albuterol and and any beta meds have same side effects of it so i tried to stop it. I also found out the vitamin b toxicity which will lead to neuropathy. right now ill just do natural foods for vitamins and cbd oil at night, sauna to detoxify and magnesium bath. i will also do regular exercise and stretching to ease symptoms. thanks for all your posts here very enlightning. sometimes i get dishearted but i always think to put a good fight of faith for the people I love and to a life which I am called. ❤

It is if the Lord led me directly to this message. I thought I was the only person in the world going through this. I am a man, has nothing to do with surgery, and I no your female , our bodies are different. I have been afraid to even bring it up cause I just figured someone would either believe I was making this up or something. I didn't really even know how to put it in words either. I am terrified to go to sleep many nights because of the violent jerking I feel inside my head and the horrible nightmares I have. i don't even know what to do. The jerks are becoming so often now, that I don't even have to be asleep anymore. I could just be tired sitting up and feel a very strong twitch, jerking feeling in my brain. I have noticed that I even starting to drop things out of my hands at times. The jerks are very scary, it is almost the same feeling of what you would feel if you were to start falling asleep even though you are awake and standing up but about to fall. If you ever find out what it is, please tell me, because I know how I am. I will not bother telling anyone because I can barely describe it. a very violent jerk, tremor feeling,associated with nightmares.

i know this thread is older but I have been digging the internet looking for answers to these exact symptoms. I could have written that description myself. I am 33 y/o female and suffer from high anxiety, depression, and panic disorder. i am not currently taking any meds for that but I will be asking my Doc on Friday for a new RX for Zoloft. I feel so much relief finding this thread as i lay here with a shaking brain, unable to sleep, with the same jerks that wake me up when i do manage to get close to sleeping. Thank you all so much for the relief. I hope you are all feeling better.

hello im so glad ive found this post, ive been having really bad anxiety and panic attacks latley, ive had really bad anxiety for 9 years ended up in A&E a few times thinking im dying, but recently i keep getting these brain tremors especially when im laying down trying to go to sleep they wake me up and then i have a panic attack, ive convinced myself its a brain tumour and everyday im waiting for something really bad to happen to me, im feeling sick im shaking im not eating i have headaches im getting flashes in my left eye, im having muscle jerks in my legs, im crying everyday, doctor says its just my anxiety but i cant stop googling my symptoms which always comes up with scary things, i mist add that my anxiety is health anxiety so at the min im obsessed with the thought its a brain tumour and nothing else im so scared and depressed with it all im 38 and have a little girl to look after and im so scared im going to die

Hey i have read all of your post and has created alot of comfort for me.

I'm 31 married good life 3 kids. but lots of stress my life.

Over the past month i have experienced these symptoms everyone is describing.

When I'm brain gets tired i get heavy brain sensations, vibrations, ringing in the ears, dizziness. poor memory, tremors, and i get no sleep at all because of this. if i do fall asleep i get heavy brain feelings and i get pulled our of my sleep and i wake up distorted

and i cant go back to sleep.

2 months ago i started getting chest pains and from there the anxiety got worse.

Here are my suspicions,

1. anxiety
2. i was on loreazepam for 1 month between.5 and 1 mg daily with a sleeping pill.

   I have read brain zaps and vibrations are common in ssri and benzo withdrawals.

   I also read that all of this is linked to anxiety.

I personally believe this has alot to do with stress and anxiety (maybe causing chemical inbalancing) and possibly withdrawls of lorezepam.

I do believe is it will not kill you and all of us who is going through this is not dying.

I recently switched to olanzepine which is an anti psychotic which at low doses 5 mg and less help calm down people with anxiety. My cousin who is a councillor in a hospital also takes it to help him sleep and help his anxiety.

I have found this pill does help with my anxiety and calms me down tremendously at 1.5mg.

Sleeping pills knock me out and gives me 4 to 5 hour sleep. although the sleeping pill could be contributing to this its hard to tell. I tried benadryl melatonin, nothing stops it.

I will keep my updates as I hope all of you will and we will get to the bottom of this and figure it out.

take care

Hello all, I am sorry I did not see the rest of the replies on this original post in 2016. I had no idea there would be so many. I have not been on this site for a while. I know how desperate I was for answers when I was experiencing these symptoms, I sincerely apologize and wanted to share some updates.

Overall... I am doing a lot better and am thankfully sleeping well. I apologize in advance for the length... after my original post and a few replies which I was very grateful for, I dove myself into having a lot of tests done as well as online research. I learned a lot about blood work and I visited doctors trying to figure out what was going on. All of my blood tests and ultrasounds and blood work came back ok except elevated cholesterol, glucose, hscrp and a positive ANA antibody screen test.

I did have to start high blood pressure medication. My MRI revealed that I had an empty sella and the doctor said it was not a big concern but I did end up having a spinal tap which revealed that I had pressure in my cerebral fluid and I was diagnosed as having pseudo tumor cerebri. For the Pseudo tumor cerebri condition, I was prescribed diamox... I did take that for a very short period of time (less than a month) . It did not really help me too much. It helped with one type of headache, the throbbing one but it did not help the other strange nerve pain headache I was getting. I agreed with the diagnosis however since it is an idiopathic condition I wanted to know what was suddenly causing these horrible sleep issues, tremors and the headache tinnitus problems in the first place... Why now? It was like a stress switch had turned on and I wanted to turn it off.

The medications that did help me somewhat was the high pressure medication and estradiol. Overall... Here is my hypothesis on what happened and what I feel helped me get through this period of time. This is only my opinion for what happened to me personally, every individual is different but for me the main cause of my sleep and other health issues I believe was a combination or “Cascade” of the following 6 things happening.

1. Extreme body stress and Anxiety: I can’t believe I am saying this because I heard many times the word “anxiety” from a doctor... I would instantly “check out” because it was not what I wanted to hear... I would think, “this is ridiculous I am having a real physical problem here and you're telling me it’s anxiety”? The problem is... I thought saying it was anxiety meant I was just acting anxious or that it's all in my head, or that my symptoms were not physically real when I knew they were. What I have come to realize in hindsight is that my body itself was in the state of being physically “anxious”. Looking back... I can now see where the doctor was coming from since my body was feeling anxious and stressed, this caused me to have anxiety mentally as well because I was in a state of physical unrest but when I was in it I didn't see it that way...all I felt was frustration and was asking myself what is causing this?

2. Sleep Deprivation: These two #1 and #2 go hand and hand. I think #1 can cause #2 and vice versa.

3. Hormone or neurotransmitter Imbalances. This can cause both #1 & #2 and vice versa..

4. Metabolic issues: Bad diet, lack of exercise and Glucose intolerance. This can cause #1, #2, and #3 and vice versa. Plus causes weight gain which can cause high blood pressure and high glucose and which can cause sleep apnea.

5. Inflammation: Caused by #1, #2, #3, #4, #6 and vice versa.

6. Sleep Apnea: This can cause #1, #2, #4 #5 . Got Diagnosed in 2019.

Separately I’m sure this would have been more manageable but, in my opinion a combination of these things caused a cascade of my issues. What was completely unforeseen was that #4 was my biggest culprit of all of them. I felt like I was a house of cards and one fell. If you would have told me 3 years ago that changing my diet and exercise habits would have helped me I would have given you the biggest eye roll ….but please hear me out. I paid a functional medicine doctor $400 for just over an hour to listen to me and basically she let me vent the whole time. At the end...she said, here’s what I want you to do... I want you to seriously go on the Whole 30 diet and walk or exercise 30 mins everyday for 30 days. I looked at her and thought inside my head “I just paid you $400 to tell me to go on a diet and exercise?” Well I thought this was a whole new low for me.

So I reluctantly said well since I paid you $400 I guess i’ll do it. She said jokingly why do you think I charge $400? She said it would change my life and well guess what... it actually did. The Whole 30 diet is a diet similar to the Paleo diet where you can only eat fresh food and I mean NO processed foods at all. It also is a type of anti inflammatory protocol diet. Over the period of 30days I lost 12 pounds in 1 month. I felt like I had not only lost pounds but even more important was the loss of stress and inflammation. It was like my body pushed the reset button. I had only 1 headache in a month and before I did the diet I was having one every 5-6 days. The tinnitus did not go away but it did get a lot softer in volume at times I could barely hear it. Plus my blood pressure went way down to 110/70 and I was sleeping even better than ever. But that's not all... my blood work before and after the diet revealed

Before Diet After Diet

Glucose 94 88

Total Cholesterol 214 165

LDL 13997

CRP 5.63.1

ANA Screen Positive Negative

Also had other inflammatory biomarkers that decreased significantly

The tremors I was feeling lasted a few months after my original post and seemed to be triggered by lack of good quantity and quality sleep. It resolved itself well before I did the diet. They slowly tapered off and went away. My Cpap definitely improved my quality of sleep in 2019 but here’s what I did to get some more sleep which in turn helped with the tremors going away years before I got the cpap.

1. Nightly I took a hot shower before bed. Sometimes if I woke up I took another one. I did this to relax and increase blood flow.
2. I also took a Magnesium supplement occasionally at bedtime.
3. Calmed Down Stopped the Stress... I did meditation and breathing sessions using Youtube videos found under “sleep meditation”. I was also prescribed a high blood pressure medication.
4. Other supplements I took occasionally included Vitamin D, CoQ 10 and Melatonin.
5. 30 mins relaxing outdoors in nature daily... usually right after I got off work.
6. Milk or Hot Herbal Tea before bed.
7. I bought eyeglasses that had blue blocker lenses and I did not look at my phone or a computer or TV at least 30 mins before bed. I am on the computer all day at work so I started to wear blue blocker glasses during the day.
8. Exercise (once again hate to admit it but yes it does help)
9. Cut out Caffeine (this was tough for me)
10. I did an at home sleep study for sleep apnea and was diagnosed in 2019.
11. Checked my blood levels every few months on good days and bad days. I kept track….I tested all my Hormones...my Cortisol was off sometimes and thyroid for a while as well and my estradiol was WAY TOO LOW and inflammation was high.
12. DIET DIET DIET Yes in my opinion my diet of eating out and consuming processed foods most of the time caused an increase in inflammation and stress on my body. Instead I have now turned to fresh foods and healthy fats.
13. Sought the advice of professionals and got checkup and testing when needed.
14. Had a sleep schedule and went to bed at the same timeframe every night.
15. If I could not sleep I got up and left the room. I did not stay in bed awake. I got up, sat on the couch read something boring and I tried again after ½ hour or so.
16. On the weekends I did not set my alarm and I shut off my phone so any possible chance of sleeping in I did.
17. I turned all of the lights off in the bedroom NO TV No Noise distraction total darkness.
18. Keep room temperature cool.
19. For a while I was falling asleep and not staying asleep I would wake up at like 3am-4am wide awake...I started taking my glucose blood test before bed and at 3-4am when I woke up. My glucose level was much higher. Fyi I am not a diabetic. I did research on the Somogyi effect and the dawn phenomenon. This greatly improved when I went on the diet as well.

    20)Time... I think my body just needed some time to readjust and I think the body has a remarkable way of fixing itself. It just needs some patience and time.

I had some more but I forgot...Oh Yeah kept a journal.

I do still have some lingering issues that I would love insight on...

1)Tinnitus never had it before and appeared soon after my surgery seems to be metabolic or hormone driven. It was really loud at first and decreased in volume when I I got my hormones balanced and also got softer during my diet. Increases in volume sometimes after I eat and when glucose is higher. Tinnitus can also increase in volume before and during a headache episode.

2. Headaches and vision issues occasionally. I occasionally get white light shooting across vision in the corner of my left eye. Once in a while my distance vision is blurry in the morning. Headache is a nerve pain headache with the back of the neck and numb forehead sometimes with pain that causes my eardrums to hurt. I really feel this is somehow interrelated with either sex hormones, dopamine or possibly an inflammatory response involving insulin resistance or glucose since I saw significant improvement with my diet but I am shooting for totally curing these issues if at all possible.

This is an update on what has helped me thus far. I hope this post continues to promote open discussion and people will continue to share their insights.

Hi I just wanted to let you all know I am doing well and sleeping a lot better. I had a long more detailed reply typed out but it is waiting for moderation 😃