Richard:

Strange things happen to our muscles during sleep. Primarily, the brain shuts them down so we don't act out our dreams. I'm not sure exactly how it does that but I've had hypnogogic sleep paralysis....where it does that before the conscious part of your brain is actually asleep, and it starts with a big shock, and tingle to the muscles. Any movement after that point that one attempts to make, gets weaker and weaker, until the person feels they are completely paralyzed. The catch is, the movement actually never happened. From the moment you feel that shock, you are actually completely paralyzed. I know this because I always come out of it in the exact same position I was in before the shock despite some degree of thrashing in my "dream" to rouse myself....usually sleep paralysis involves frightening hallucinations, or the sense of an malevolent presence in the room.

I also have some type of sleep disorder...delayed sleep phase syndrome with some type of weird myoclonus unrelated to the MC. If I'm awoken during my deepest REM sleep, it's a massive physical shock to my system and I'm frequently too weak to get out of bed.

So sleep definitely affects the muscles. In the case of MC, lack of sleep or sufficiently restful sleep can definitely make the myotonia worse.

Type of Myotonia: Becker

Country: USA

Sleep apnea will ABSOLUTELY make MC worse because tiredness makes MC worse, and nonrestorative sleep isn't going to cut the mustard with MC. Glad this has helped you so much!!!

I found that sleep position makes all the world of difference for me.

Type of Myotonia: Thomsen's

Country: USA