As the title says. I go for a 20 minute walk and when I stop moving, I’m not feeling tired or even agitated at all, yet my legs feel like they’re pulsating in different areas, always near the skin. It’s not synchronised with my heartbeat. It stops after a few minutes.
Chat GPT says these are just muscle twitches caused by dehydration or lack of electrolytes. I’m not convinced. Why does it feel almost on the skin and not deeper in the muscles? Why do I feel it after a 20 minute walk that doesn’t make me sweat but I don’t feel it after a 40 minute leg focused workout??? Wouldn’t that be more strenuous on the legs?? Does this thing even have a name?
Thanks
it’s perfectly normal for muscles to twitch after an exercise, and when you get a muscle twitch like that it usually feels like it’s near the skin. your muscles are having trouble recovering and it’s either because they’ve been overworked, or you’re dehydrated, or you’ve been taking stimulants, or you’ve got low magnesium.
Okay, so you’re saying even though I feel it on my skin and not my muscles is still on my muscles. Fair enough. But then why does it happen only with mild activities like walking but not with something more intense?
I wonder if you’re just using different muscles? Like doing a bench press vs an overhead… I would have thought those were all the same muscles, but they are absolutely not!
lol your skin can’t move without muscles dude.
I never said my skin moved either my dude. It’s a sensation, not a movement
Okay, so you’re saying even though I feel it on my skin and not my muscles is still on my muscles.
you straight up said you thought it wasn’t your muscles moving.
Yeah, nothing moves, it feels like a pulsation on my skin but nothing is moving. Neither my skin nor my muscles move. I’m trying to understand what causes this sensation. What is point with that quote?
Benign fasciculation. It only used to happen after walking, and in my quads and calves. I swam competitively in division III and never happened in my upper body. I never worried about it. For folks that don’t understand the minimal and random nature of the ticks, here’s a good video.
That’s so interesting, thanks for sharing the link. But in my case, nothing moves. After reading some replies and googling more I’m more inclined to think it’s just the capillaries and small arteries delivering blood to the skin with different amounts of delay.
Don’t ask medical questions of chat gpt. You may as well shake a magic 8 ball. Your legs are probably fine. Bodies just do weird stuff sometimes
Meh, ask it whatever, require it cite it’s source, then go follow up and verify for yourself
I know my legs are fine. All I want to know is a name for this sensation and what causes it. Yes, I want to know about the weird stuff the body does, why is it wrong to ask chatGPT or google?
LLMs are stochastic parrots. They just repeat the phrases most often used together in their training data in association with the words on your prompt. It’s like seeking medical advice from the predictive text on your phone keyboard.
Why is this question considered medical advice? Also, considering most common facts are parroted correctly out of LLMs, why is it wrong to search for answers there first?
Yeah it’s a very reasonable question for an llm, especially if you Google the name for it and read a reputable article after
OK fair, I guess if your not planning to act on it anyway then the stakes are pretty low. I don’t agree that llms reliably get basic information correct. “Glue is not pizza sauce” seems like a common fact to me but Googles llm disagrees for example.
“Glue is not pizza sauce” seems like a common fact to me but Googles llm disagrees for example.
That wasn’t something an LLM came up with, though. That was done by a system that uses an LLM. My guess is the system retrieves a small set of results and then just uses the LLM to phrase a response to the user’s query by referencing the links in question.
It’d be like saying to someone “rephrase the relevant parts of this document to answer the user’s question” but the only relevant part is a joke. There’s not much else you can do there.
Maybe it’s the same thing I recently had. After running a half marathon in April this year and cycling another 20km from and to the course, I also had some weird muscle cramps when finally taking a rest. It was almost like something was crawling under my skin. My muscles felt like they were cramping together and releasing very quickly and very locally in tiny spots all over my calves. It was such a surreal feeling. Kinda creepy and weird, but at the same time also kinda nice and satisfying.
I think your experience sounds like the benign fasciculation another lemming described. Look for the video link among the comments
The expansion of your muscles due to increased blood flow and I guess shedding heat.
You’re not supposed to use your legs for walking. That’s wrong.
I have never experienced anything like this. Personally I would ask my doctor about it immediately, it sounds very outlandish, walking should not lead to pulsating of any kind
I’ve met plenty of people who do experience it, but nobody knows what it is. I even encourage you ask people you know, you’d be surprised. I’ve never met someone who would be alarmed by it though. But you are right, it is something I should be asking a doctor. I always forget unfortunately
I heard it was due to greater blood flow to areas that routinely don’t experience that level of flow, kind of like how you really notice the breeze on your face after you shave off your beard. Now, I don’t have any proof this is it, but a month or so of regular brisk walks should be enough for your cardiovascular system to adapt to the new requirements, causing the sensation to vastly reduce if not disappear completely.
A magnesium deficiency can cause twitching in your legs, but I don’t know if anyone on the internet would be able to help tell if the pulsing sensation is caused by muscles contracting or something else.
If you have decent access to healthcare and it’s bothering you, bring it up with your doctor. It’s unlikely anyone here is qualified to be giving you medical advice. And if they were, they likely wouldn’t be comfortable giving a diagnosis based only on a post.
No, this isn’t something bothering me in any other way than making me curious about it. I’m not seeking medical advice, just physiological or biological information about this phenomenon. It doesn’t really feel like a twitch in my muscles, it’s more like my skin is pulsating. My body doesn’t move. It’s just a sensation
Could just be vascular flow from the motion. like when you work out hard with a muscle group, the area will gain blood and turn flush for a while.
Is it possible to feel this flush pulsating at different rythms simultaneously on different areas of my skin? I would think it’s just blood flow but it’s so erratic and not matching my heartbeat
Possibly, the heart pumps but your vascular system has to return it all and it may feel different. But could also be the reduction of vein size as blood pressure ia dropping that you are feeling
Fair enough, this could be it
Have you checked your blood pressure?
No, I don’t have the means. Why would it be the blood pressure?
Many chemists and supermarkets have automated blood pressure check machines. Some are even free.
I can get to take home a device to chek my pressure for free?
No, just a one off test on a machine that you out your arm into.
