Any medications containing fluorine molecules like Prozac can make myotonia worse because fluorine and fluorides inhibit the chloride channel. Even fluoridated drinking water and toothpaste containing fluorides can cause increased stiffness.

Small amounts of alcohol can have a slightly relaxing effect, but anything more than that will make MC worse. Cigarettes can make it worse because of the stimulation of adrenaline production.

Jan

Type of Myotonia: Thomsen's

Country: USA

Thank you so much for the info, I did try and come off prozac twice once for 6 weeks and once for a month both in 2010, I have tried 3 of the ssri's that can help ocd and depression one was citalopram which made my mental health problems 50 times worse the other one helped a bit with my ocd and also made me coffident which was good cause I am a very shy person, and that was called sertraline I didnt notice any muscle stiffness change in citalopram or sertraline do you know if those drugs have any of the same things that effect the chloride channell, the citalopram and the sertraline that is, I did do cbt but it had no effect so after 1 year 6 months decided the easier drug option I was just wondering if there was another ssri e.g paxil that can help me with my mental health problems but that dont make my mc worse, thanks in advance Martone

Type of Myotonia: I think Beckers

Country: britain

I saw a report of sertraline helping the myotonia in Paramyotonia Congenita, and I believe several years ago someone emailed me about it helping with stiffness in MC. It doesn't contain any fluorine so it might be worth a try.

OCD and anxiety are often related to a metabolic error. Sometimes correcting that block in metabolism with supplements can be very helpful. Two in particular that I can think of are inositol and Acetyl-L-Carnitine. If you can find a good holistic MD they may be able to do the testing and see if something like that would help.

Jan

Type of Myotonia: Thomsen's

Country: USA

Martone:

I have a few questions, if you don't mind answering.

First, do you have true clinical OCD or obsessive compulsive traits? OCD is actually a very specific disorder but there are traits that are obsessive compulsive, or perfectionist in nature that are not really OCD but are often called OCD for lack of better label. The upcoming DSM V will have a classification "Obsessive Compulsive or Related Disorders Not Elsewhere Classified" to attempt to resolve this confusion. I would not be surprised if the success rate for CBT is lower in this disorder than it is for OCD, for various reasons.

What did the CBT entail? Did you continue it at home? And when you say it had no effect, do you mean you weren't able to resist the compulsions or you resisted but didn't see any lessening of them?

Also, were you on medication when you started the CBT or any time during it?

With OCD it's generally advisable you do the CBT whether you are on medication or not.

There are numerous medications for OCD. Most of them are SSRIs, a few are tricyclics. I don't know about their effects on muscles but Paxil can cause myoclonic jerks and one of the newer SSRIs is sometimes prescribed for fibromyalgia.

If you do ever try Paxil and it doesn't work or you need to go off of it, be sure not to just stop taking it. It can be physically addicting and the withdrawl can be severe so those wanting to quit it have to be weened off. I don't think any other SSRI has this problem. At least not to such an extreme extent. But some people are helped by it.

Type of Myotonia: Becker

Country: USA