torso "jerks"

I have a friend whose husband's whole body jerks when he is sleeping - so much so that it wakes her up.

He does not move his legs, his arms to not flail - his torso jerks pretty dramatically. He snores, but so far, my friend has not heard him gasping for breath or been aware that he does not breathe.

He is resistant to going to the doctor, because he is not convinced he is doing anything.

Any info from anyone about the connection between body jerks and OSA?

Anything you know of in print somewhere? He will take some convincing.

Thanks

some jerks are normal if they happen when you transition from wake to sleep, they are called a Hypnic jerk. I think Normal is having 1 or 2 of these per night anything more then it can be seen as PLMD or RLS if they are associated with an arousal to one's sleep.

The only way to determine that is with a PSG or sleep study. If he has having enough for the wife to notice, he probably is having several hundred per night. These may interrupt his sleep where it takes him out of REM or deep sleep back to a lower stage of sleep.

if she cannot persuade him to see a doctor, maybe a vitamin with higher amounts of magnesium may help.

Wikepedia gives the best description, but you can do your own search on Hypnic jerk and find medical reference sites but it basically says the same thing as below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

Again, a few per night are common. I once read one research paper (link no longer valid) years ago that theorized these were possibly the neurological "switch" that shuts off muscle control when you traverse from a wake to a sleep state. It was also thought that when this neuro switch malfunctions you can end up with another opposite condition call sleep paralysis (SP). SP is where you wake up and the neuro control circuit that turns back on muscle control fails and you lay there unable to move but are conscious.

If you study what PLMD and RLS syndromes are they are very similar but instead of 1 or 2 of these as you transition from wake to sleep you can have one every 30 seconds or so. And just like the 1 or 2 that are common, they wake you up with every one.

Before cpap, I used to have dozens if not hundreds of these when going from wake to sleep state. It was like my body was fighting to fall asleep and many times like my heart had actually stopped beating. My heart would race after these jerks. They would be worse sleeping on my right side vs any other position, so I did some study on the vagus nerve. It was unknown if these events were the hypnic jerk (a leg torso jerk was associated with them in my case) or I was experiencing a central apnea. No leg movements showed up on my 4ea PSGs, but the centrals did and they wouldn't allow me to sleep on my right side. If I try to fall asleep on my right side without cpap, I will experience these, it is almost a given. I think we have all experienced what an apnea feels like when attempting a nap, those or one thing these are another although they could be the same thing.

I believe I had one of those 'torso jerks' last night. It woke me up because I thought the bed jumped and had thoughts about an earthquake moving the bed! No earthquake, just a body quake!

Jeff in TN

SnoreDog - the transition jerks are smaller than what my friend has described - at least the transition jerks I have seen or experienced.

How about suggesting that your friend set up a video camera one night? Her husband may believe her observations are true if he can see them for himself. It is tough to dispute such concrete evidence, IMHO.

How nice of you to think of asking the forum for your friends, Betty.

Being fairly new, you are certainly learning a lot! In my experience, we never quit learning more about our treatment.

Well done, and please keep posting and reading. We are better at solving problems together, than we ever can be separately.

Karen

For the two months before being diagnosed with apnea, I experienced similar "body jerks", most when trying to fall asleep. It was not only a jerk, but more like the lower torso was momentarily convulsing. Doctor did not think it was related to apnea. All I can say is that within one week of beginning CPAP, they ended. On CPAP now for 6 months and no sign of more jerks.