Many chronic kidney failure patients on hemodialysis complain about twitching muscles and they are concerned about how to alleviate it because it is very painful.
Dialysis and twitching muscles
Twitching muscle is relatively common side effects of hemodialysis and its incidence is about 10%-15%. It mainly occurs in calf muscle, feet, upper limb and abdominal muscles. It might due to too fast filtering of wastes and water from the blood. If twitching muscle is very severe, talk with the doctor and adjust the dialysis. Twitching muscles can be alleviated by slowing down or stopping ultrafiltration and give 100-200ml hypertonic sugar water or saline.
Malnutrition and twitching muscles
Another reason is malnutrition. Due to damages of the digestive system and restriction on diets, many renal failure patients are malnourished. The inadequate supply of vitamin D can cause high blood calcium and this will cause twitching muscles too.
Metabolic disorders and muscle twitching
Besides, a series of metabolic disorders in chronic kidney failure contribute to muscle twitching too.
Metabolic disorder of vitamin D
Due to the lack of 1-hydroxylase, chronic kidney failure patients can not produce active vitamin D3 which can promote the absorption of calcium in the gastrointestinal tract. Vitamin D3 deficiency will affect calcium absorption and cause low blood calcium which is the main reason of muscle twitching.
Hyperphosphatemia (high blood phosphorus)
Due to the decrease of GFR, the kidneys can not discharge excessive phosphorus out of the blood and cause high level of blood phosphorus. Even mild hyperphosphatemia can cause low blood calcium to maintain constant product of serum calcium and serum phosphorus.
However, sometimes muscle twitching can not be relieved after supply of calcium agents; this indicates that the twitching muscle is might caused by nervous lesions.
To treat twitching muscles in kidney failure, the first step is to find out weather it is caused by hemodialysis, low blood calcium or nervous damages and then take according treatments for different causes.