About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffTreatment of myoclonus is most effective when a reversible underlying cause can be found — such as a medication or toxin that can be discontinued or "flushed out" of your body. Most of the time, however, the underlying cause can't be cured or eliminated, so treatment is aimed at easing myoclonus symptoms, especially when they're disabling. There are no drugs specifically designed to treat myoclonus, but doctors have borrowed from other disease treatment arsenals to relieve myoclonic symptoms.
Medications
Medications that doctors commonly prescribe for myoclonus include:
- Tranquilizers. Clonazepam (Klonopin) is the most common drug used to combat myoclonus symptoms.
- Anticonvulsants. Drugs used to control epileptic seizures have also proved helpful in reducing myoclonus symptoms. The most common anticonvulsants used for myoclonus are levetiracetam (Keppra), valproic acid (Depakene) and primidone (Mysoline).
Therapies
Botulinum toxin type A (Botox) injections may be helpful in treating various forms of myoclonus, particularly if only a single area is affected. Botulinum toxins block the release of a chemical messenger that triggers muscle contractions.
Surgery
If your myoclonus symptoms are caused by a tumor or lesion in your brain or spinal cord, surgery may be an option.
Deep brain stimulation has also been tried in some people with inherited disorders that are hard to treat.
- Caviness JN. Classification and evaluation of myoclonus. http://www.uptodate.com. Accessed April 27, 2010.
- Jankovic J, et al. Movement disorders: Diagnosis and assessment. In: Bradley WG, et al. Neurology in clinical practice. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Butterworth-Heinemann/Elsevier; 2008. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/book.do?method=display&type=bookPage&decorator=header&eid=4-u1.0-B978-0-7506-7525-3..50026-1--cesec27&uniq=196879356&isbn=978-0-7506-7525-3&sid=987314823. Accessed April 22, 2010.
- Myoclonus fact sheet. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/myoclonus/detail_myoclonus.htm. Accessed April 19, 2010.
- Caviness JN. Treatment of myoclonus. http://www.uptodate.com. Accessed April 20, 2010.
- Caviness JM. Classification and evaluation of myoclonus. http://www.uptodate.com. Accessed June 23, 2010.
- Neurological diagnostic tests and procedures. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/misc/diagnostic_tests.htm. Accessed April 22, 2010.
Find Mayo Clinic on