It was a twitching of muscles in my upper arm such as triceps usually, sometimes forearms, sometimes calf muscles and facial muscles around the eyes. It didn't cause pain but it was annoying and a little troubling. The light twitching would just go on an on for hours, every 5-15 seconds seemingly unending. I recall my cat batting at the back of my arm while sitting on my back balcony one morning. I think it was wiggling a loose thread on my shirt.
It didn't really seem to follow any logic, except I noticed alcohol made them worse. Alcohol also caused an increase in anxiety in the following days. I also experienced symptoms of depression. It was a very dark time.
There was definitely more going on than just magnesium but it wasn't until I tried the magnesium that I had any breakthrough.
Good luck. Another poster in these comments mentioned that you can get non-prescription testing for magnesium and other markers from Walk-In Labs ( https://www.walkinlab.com/ ) if you want to go that route. I also know there are doctors out there that will work with this kind of medicine, but I don't know too much about that. Magnesium is pretty safe, but I understand there is some possibility for problems with taking too much.
I genuinely wish you the greatest success, I'm confident that with careful, thoughtful effort along with your loving support, your spouse can start to feel better.
Maybe consider meditation too? Box breathing[0][1] is an often recommended technique for this sort of thing.
Dr. Andrew Huberman[3] recommends a breathing technique, I cant remember what he calls it, but is easily performed to counteract sympathetic nervous stress:
Breath in sharply through the nose, quickly to about half capacity Once, brief pause, followed by a second sharp inhalation through the nose to mostly full capacity, brief pause, and then release the total breath through the mouth.
He suggests doing this 2 or 3 times to engage the parasympathetic nervous response.
It didn't really seem to follow any logic, except I noticed alcohol made them worse. Alcohol also caused an increase in anxiety in the following days. I also experienced symptoms of depression. It was a very dark time.
There was definitely more going on than just magnesium but it wasn't until I tried the magnesium that I had any breakthrough.
Good luck. Another poster in these comments mentioned that you can get non-prescription testing for magnesium and other markers from Walk-In Labs ( https://www.walkinlab.com/ ) if you want to go that route. I also know there are doctors out there that will work with this kind of medicine, but I don't know too much about that. Magnesium is pretty safe, but I understand there is some possibility for problems with taking too much.
I genuinely wish you the greatest success, I'm confident that with careful, thoughtful effort along with your loving support, your spouse can start to feel better.
Maybe consider meditation too? Box breathing[0][1] is an often recommended technique for this sort of thing.
Dr. Andrew Huberman[3] recommends a breathing technique, I cant remember what he calls it, but is easily performed to counteract sympathetic nervous stress: Breath in sharply through the nose, quickly to about half capacity Once, brief pause, followed by a second sharp inhalation through the nose to mostly full capacity, brief pause, and then release the total breath through the mouth. He suggests doing this 2 or 3 times to engage the parasympathetic nervous response.
[0] - https://quietkit.com/box-breathing/
[1] - https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-box-breathing
[2] - Huberman Labs podcast available on RSS feeds - "Overcoming Anxiety" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z25f6qy361Y