Electric shock feeling thru whole body

Anxiety is a possibility.

Ive had these off and on for years. I HATE IT. ive had fibro for almost 25yrs, but the zapping didnt start till i started taking meds for it. It usually does happen when you change dosage, or withdrawing from a med (as in you havent gotten your refill yet). Can you imagine the side effects of all these meds? These docs dont really realize what it feels like because if they havent gone thru it, they can only guess and most of them just ignore it. Sometimes, like now, it lasts for weeks, can you imagine going for weeks feeling zaps in your body every 15 seconds??? yea i guess you can or you wouldnt be here huh? I think the FDA sometimes rushes these meds thru quickly after only months or a year or two of studies. How many meds lately have been recalled or stopped because of "new" side effects that came later? honestly we take these meds in faith, mostly because we NEED relief either from depression, pain, or whatever reason. THEN, we end up with things like zaps, it makes me wonder what exactly happens inside our body, what changes when we take these meds. Because if we miss a dose or two, we zap, is it our brain that has changed? chemically? our spinal fluid? central nervous system? ITS a very scary thing to think of, and more scary when we have them. Im planning on seeing my doc this week, because these zaps are getting to me right now.

I am also taking Effesor for anxiety disorder and feel these "shocks" throughout the whole day after I miss a dose. They are so bad that at times I feel as though I will fall down or pass out. Mine usually occur when I turn my head..

If you are experiencing these "zaps" while taking, getting off of, or changing antidepressants, it is Seritonin Withdrawal Syndrome. Dr's do not really recognize this and seem to blow you off when you ask them about it or try to explain it. The zaps will eventually go away if you are completely getting off a med; you just need to be patient and do your best to tolerate them until they do, sometimes this may be months, unfortunately. There are days you may feel like they will never go away, some days are worse than others. Anxiety comes along with these withdrawal symptoms, try to distract yourself, do not dwell on the zaps, it will cause your anxiety and feelings of panic to worsen. If you are continueing a med and have the zaps just by not taking it early enough, you can try taking the med an hour earlier each day, this may help. If you are changing to a new med just be patient again. I once read that if you are completely discontinueing a med, if your Dr is understanding of this, he may prescribe you Prozac which has a half life of 7 days, meaning it peaks and lasts longer in your system, you may only need to take one once a week for a few weeks. The half life of these other meds is anywhere from a 6 to 24 hours. The Prozac may help you to "come down" off the other med. Sounds like true addiction with true physical withdrawal symptoms. It really is and the people prescribing it do not fully recognize it and for sure never tell you about this before you get on these meds. In most cases the benefits may very well outway these side effects.

I have had these "zaps" usually when I'm going through withdrawal from an SSRI (I've had CFIDS for over 13 years). It was only today that I've ever had them while still being ON the medication. I've been on the same dose for over 2 years, and just recently added a low dose non-SSRI anti-depressant for a different condition. I also take Klonopin for anxiety. Of course I'm freaking out a bit, but perhaps it is because I took my zoloft dose an hour and a half later than yesterday. Normally taking it later doesn't bother me, but perhaps my body is just being finicky today. Anyone else have this kind of experience, as in still on the meds but still getting the zaps?

I am not sure if this will help anyone or not but I thought I would post it for sure. I, as well, have had the electric shocks all through my body and they are so very uncomfortable. It feels like I am hooked up to an electricity pole!!! I am 20 weeks pregnant and I've had them pretty much every night. My husband and I would be sitting on the couch watching TV and then they would start. All I could think to do is get up and move around or go to bed, I just couldn't sit still. At first I thought it was my body telling me I am exhausted and need to go to bed due to my stressful job and pregnancy. I've had these feelings before I was pregnant and I wanted to know what in the world was causing it. I told my OBGYN and he had no idea what it could be. I began worrying that it was affecting my baby. Well, I got online one morning to see if anyone else experienced these feeling and of course not many... but some. Most of them were on some kind of medicine and I knew I was taking nothing esp. since pregnant. I don't drink coffee, tea, or any caffeine and haven't in the last five years. Medicine was not the cause nor caffeine. Not sure where I searched and read but the one thing that kept coming up was a Potassium deficiency (causing shocks and tremers in the muscles). I thought how easy is that. I went and looked at my prenatels and no Potassium in them. I looked at another prenatel I had and it only had 150 MCG (Iodine from Potassium iodine). Being pregnant I am suppose to have at least 2000MG of Potassium. 150 MCG equals .15MG. Wow not near enough. I looked up some info. on foods that supply the most amount of Potassium and the two were avacodos and bananas. I've been eating both everyday and I HAVE NOT had these shocking feelings since. I was a slacker yesterday and didn't eat either and started getting them last night again. I got up and ate a banana and within 5 mins. they were gone! I know it is crazy but I will eat a banana and avacado everyday if it keeps those horrible shocks away. Just check and see if your diet consist of many foods of Potassium because I know it has helped mine go away:-) Hope this helps anyone:-)

In 1988, I suffered whiplash and a severe injury to my cervical spine when a red-light runner plowed into my small car, causing it to go out of gear into reverse toward a concrete wall of a freeway overpass. Had it not been for my engaging the emergency brake at the moment the car hit the concrete wall (putting a huge crack in it), who knows how many people could have been killed. For some reason, at the time I wasn't thinking of myself but only the people in the cars on the freeway below. In any case, thanks to a "family" unit that minimized my injuries, as well as a law firm (long out of business) that neglected to tell me that during the independent medical exam, requested by the other side's attorneys, I should not pretend to not have pain, etc., in order to "pass" the test. Not only did I wind up with a settlement amount that barely covered all of my medical bills, but being a college student, I had no health insurance at the time of the accident, so I was left with only $1,000 to repair my car, which was smashed up in an accordion-like fashion on all sides and which $1,000 would barely make a "dent", in terms of repair. So I used all the savings I had to buy another car, which was hit not long after I purchased it by a drunk driver who came out of a store parking lot and crossed four lanes of traffic (two on the store's side, the yellow lane between, and the lane to the left of me, because I was in the right lane, closest to the sidewalk and away, I thought, from traffic). The reason I mention the accidents (two of about 17, thus far, as no matter what type of car I drive, no one can "see" it, particularly while it's at a complete stop; in fact, since the first two, all the accidents in which I've been hit since I have been at a complete stop at a red light, a Stop sign or in a parking space) is because each of them, apparently, adversely affected my spine and which, according to several physicians, is what has led to my fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome and the electrical shock sensations I have had off and on since the first auto accident. A couple of years after the first two accidents, I was under a great deal of stress at a job I loved with a boss who did not value my loyalty or my devotion to the job and company (for the pay of $7 an hour in spite of my B.A. and prior work experience), and I began experiencing electrical shock sensations up and down my spine. When I took "control" of my life and enrolled in a school for paralegal training, working only part-time at the paper, the electrical shock sensation seemed to disappear. Over the past 15 years, however, as I wound up with more job stress (changing jobs to try to improve my "station" in life, not realizing that in the U.S., a "salaried" position is defined as one in which a person is paid the same amount per week whether he/she works 40 hours or 24 hours a day, seven days a week), due in part to my inability to "shrug off" and "ignore" being bullied by bosses who insisted I meet unrealistic deadlines, provided me with an overwhelming amount of work and piled more and more work onto the first piles -- too many projects even for someone who never slept or ate to accomplish -- demanded I perform illegal and/or contradictory activities, and spent a great deal of time verbally assaulting me, berating me, disparaging me, debasing me and letting me know that I was worthless. At one job, I was given no raise after nearly two years because there had been one spelling error I missed during the completion of about 700 printed materials. During that time, I was also expected to submit specific e-mails on a daily basis, voice messages and complete a huge number of web redesigns. Since I was fired (while hospitalized and undergoing a medical procedure which prevented me from calling in to let my boss know I wasn't able to come in that day), apparently I have been replaced by four men, each of whom is paid more than I was paid. This happened at other companies I worked for as well, indicating to me that no one in any type of position of power values hard-working, dedicated, loyal employees. Neither do these "power mongers" value the bottom line because giving me a small raise would have prevented the expenditure of much more money ... but who cares about saving money, right? In any case, as my life became more stressful, the electric shock sensations got worse, spread throughout my body, and were accompanied by other odd symptoms including my arms feeling so heavy that I wanted to take them off and "hang them up" to be free of carrying them around; necrosis of the gum tissue in my mouth, which spread until I had to lose a tooth and have other dental, orthodontic and periodontal work done at a cost of thousands of dollars over a decade (even though I always took care of my teeth as directed); problems with my thyroid; several times suddenly finding myself urinating blood and being told in the E.R. that I should have felt some sort of pain (which I didn't) because each time I had a severe UTI; feeling that my head was too heavy to hold up; severe carpal tunnel symptoms; muscle spasms in my toes, my legs, my fingers, my legs, my face; feeling that my body was both on fire (including the soles of my feet) and had electrical wire running through it plugged into an outlet that was filling my body with far too much electricity to bear. I lost my ability to read, to comprehend words and letters, to do basic math, etc. All this time, I was trying to continue to work so that I wouldn't lose my home and wind up on the street and so I would not have to go on to disability. I am convinced that even though I have been diagnosed by several doctors with fibromyalgia that the electrical sensations are due to my spinal injury, particularly for two reasons. The first is that about four or five years ago, a highly esteemed doctor looking at the results of an MRI of my cervical and thoracic spine proclaimed, "Oh my God, no wonder you're in so much pain!" He then asked why I had never had surgery, to which I replied that I was living my life, trying to ignore the pain, sporadically trying chiropractic, physical therapy, accupuncture, epidural injections in the spine, muscle relaxants, Tramadol, and finally just settled on taking about 60 aspirin a day because the physician who did the independent medical exam way back in 1988 told me I would be well if I just left his office and went out to "live (my) life normally." He was wrong. He was working for the insurance company's money, not my welfare. I was too naive to know this back then. I'm not naive anymore. I know what people are motivated by: Money. In any case, the other reason I am convinced that the spine is the cause of these electrical shock sensations throughout the body is because on April 2, I slipped and fell onto a very hard tile floor, winding up with a huge bruise (or a collection of bruises that formed one bruise) about 8 1/2 inches wide and 6 inches long, injuring my lumbar spine, certainly my coccyx, and have had some of the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced in my life. It's as if there is a fire inside my body, fibromyalgia like, on the backs of my thighs -- which I've never had before -- as well as the point at which my lumbar spine meets the sacrum. Since then, I have had weakness and numbness in my right leg (which typically I would only get in my left leg due to the first two auto accidents in which I was hit on the driver's side and then in the first accident hit again head on), electrical sensations all throughout my body, including in my brain, and I have had all kinds of bowel and urinary issues I didn't have with such frequency before. I did go to a chiropractor for X-rays and treatment but he said he didn't see any break. But these symptoms, brand new, are coming from somewhere. And I have had two episodes of "seizure-like" electrical shocks and muscle spasms throughout my entire body in as many weeks. So unless you're diagnosed with M.S., think back to whether you had a head injury, even as a child, or any injury to your spine ... These electrical shocks are coming from the spine.

I took Effexor XR for 2 years. I have now been off of it for 2 months and have had constant shocking feeling. I was recently diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I just wonder if it is related somehow.

i just started feeling the same thing. i actually had to leave work today because i thought i would pass out, and i couldn't shake the feeling like i was about to start crying because it was so scary! anyway, the electric shock/butterfly feeling is evidently withdrawal from the generic zoloft i've been taking for a few months. i didn't like how the medications were making me feel, so i decided to stop taking them. i felt fine for a few days, but then started getting those whole-body shocks. turns out my doctor should have told me that i need to taper off zoloft, and that it comes with serious withdrawal symptoms like this. hope that helps!

This is unreal! I knew that there had to be other people out there that had something like this - because I KNOW that it is not normal to feel like I am being electrocuted (when there is no plausible source!). I began taking antidepressant medication (fairly low dose for mild to moderate dysthymia) about 4 (?) years ago; I noticed that if I missed a dose, within 24-36 hours, I would experience some sort of "shock" that seemed to start in my brain and zip through my body - I liken it to being electrocuted by a fence, for those of you who have experienced cattle fences! Some "shocks" were just little and some were very noticable - they would go from head to toe and leave a tingling feeling afterward. I have recently switched to a different medication (antiD) and am taking Lyrica for possible fibromyalgia (no one really knows what is going on...) - have been to neurologist, rheumetologist, lab testing (mannnny), MRI on brain-back-neck, spine specialist, etc . . . trying to figure out pain and fatigue (probably due to lack of quality sleep)...UGH. Anyway, what I wanted to find out today is what others are finding out about their "shocks" - I do think that it has something to do with brain chemical processes and am determined to STOP the ones that I get now. I have been on a stable dose of Effexor and Lyrica for over 2 months and, when weaning off Celexa and switching to Effexor (celexa was no longer effective for my dysthymia), I was experiencing shocks quite often, and I attributed that to the medication switching. HOWEVER, the shocks went away for a while . . . and have come b ack. For the last 3-4 weeks, around 2-3pm, I start experiencing light, twinge-y shocks that just kind of alert me to the fact that they are "starting" (AWESOME). Then, as the evening progresses, they become stronger and stronger and more frequent. I was on the treadmill the other afternoon, just walking at an easy pace, and I had a BUGGER of a shock that, for a millisecond, seemed to paralyze my right side of my body! My brain/head hurt on the left side, and my right arm and leg ached and my right foot felt burned and tingly. As well, my lips and tongue went numb after the tingle (that happens on occasion with these shocks). WHAT IN THE WORLD?!!?!?

I have had this shock sensation since I was about 5. It goes along my spine to my legs, causing spasms in my back and legs. It happens mainly when I'm trying to sleep. Some nights it drives me absolutely nuts! My grandmother called it the "heeby jeebies" lol. I have never been able to get a diagnosis for this. My husband thinks I'm crazy when I try to explain the feeling to him. It's very hard to deal with at times. Some nights I just feel like crying because I'm so tired and it won't let me sleep. I have found that a very hot bath or shower can help illiminate the sensation for a time. I sympathize with all you other suffers out there.

i feel electric through my body too but when i touch someone they said it feels like they got shocked

i have the same prob but im only 16 i feel the zapping threw out my whole body and i dont kno what it is..i have an anxiety disorder .do you guys think its anxiety? :

Well im a bt confused to be honest. wen i get it my body loses complete control for a second to the point that i drop wat im holding, and stop talking. I get them wen im really nerveouse or tired. But all you guys are on some kind of meds im not and i still get them??? there really worrying me.

Wow- This is amazing. After over 10-15 years of telling people I get these "shocks" in my head, body, and feet (especially in my feet when I walk). I have found others that do suffer from the same thing. I have been reading some other site today as well and they all point to Epilepsy or a mild form of it. I have not spent much time reading about it today because as I mentioned I cannot believe I have found others with this same condition. If anyone does have some definite answers or has received a diagnosis please email me or post here so I can know for sure. If you have posted a diagnosis I apologize if I did not read it yet but today is my first time finding others with these shocks. I will be reading most of the night to catch up. I did find some good information here: ***edited by moderator*** web addresses not allowed Please email me at ***this post is edited by moderator *** *** private e-mails not allowed ** Please read our Terms of Use if anyone has more information. Sincerely, Jeff 1st