"Cell phone" vibration in your thigh?

Okay - maybe someone has heard of this and knows a dx. I have researched and researched and can not find ONE single professional answer to it. Only thing I can find is thread after thread after thread with HUNDREDS of PATIENTS who have this complaint, yet NO ONE has dx it as being anything yet.

Vibration in your thigh - crease of thigh in women, or groin area usually in men - and it feels exactly like you have your cell phone on vibrate in your pocket and its going off. IN fact - causes many to constantly check their cell only to realize that isn't what it is - can feel it lying down at night, sitting up during the day - just a constant low vibration.

My immediate thought is that its like blood rushing through a vein - but no s/s at all of any kind of DVT - no pain, no difficulty with mvmt, or breathing, no rapid hr - no other signs and symptoms of anything else - just this annoying vibration that feels like a tiny cell phone set on vibrate.

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65 Answers

Specializes in Behavioral Health.

Is the muscle twitching, or is it merely the sensation without any movement of the muscle? A muscle twitch would be more suggestive of electrolytes. Sensory perception without muscle movement would suggest something else.

I've had this before, but only experience it on the left where I keep my phone, which is always in vibrate mode. I've always assumed it was a sort of sensory aftershock. Nerves that are stimulated frequently can become sensitized to stimuli and may trigger a sensation more easily (similar to central sensitization in chronic pain). So, I think my left thigh sensory neurons get triggered more easily because they're primed to feel the vibration of my phone, and now they trigger over the slightest provocation whether my phone is in my pocket or not. This actually sounds exactly like what one of the articles Risk Manager posted talks about, where resident and attending physicians reported increased phantom vibrations in the location of their pagers.

I assume everybody gets the odd twitch, vibration, even pain, in various parts of their body that arise for no logical reason. I get them, I can't say I've had the thigh one.

If it just lasts a short time...a few minutes, and only happens once in a while, no doctor or PhD is going to spend time researching it.

I guess if it lasts hours and happens several time a day or week a Dr. might look into it? I doubt they'd find anything, or if they did find something it would be so insignificant the "treatment" would be worse than the "illness."

I've had this feeling before that lasted for periods of time. I was diagnosed with congenital spinal stenosis. Could be related.

Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

I have this. It's random, but happens almost every other day. And it's not like that 'twitch' you sometimes get in your eyelid or other place. It's definitely a vibration.

I really thought I was crazy at first.

Specializes in retired LTC.

Have to be careful that we're not giving medical advice, but some kind of pinched nerve from degen disc or degen joint nerve pressure might be at cause. Like a sciatica ...

When my left thigh tingles, I just give it a couple smacks to get rid of the 'pins & needles'.

srercg said:
Let me clarify.

1. it FEELS like your cell phone is going off in your pocket (vibration). There is not an actual cell phone in the picture.

2. It lasts weeks, months. . .not just a few minutes. You experience it on/off throughout the day everyday - mine started a couple weeks ago.

3. when I look it up on the internet - tons and tons of threads in places from other people who experience the same thing - but no one has ever found out what causes it.

Some people think its a pinched nerve somewhere. Others have gotten tested for MS over it (which was negative). Some say they have increased potassium, magnesium, and so on, and sort of helped or it went away.

I've just taken a multivitamin last couple nights - no luck yet. lol

And MANY, if not all, have said they've never heard of it before, and thought they were crazy until they found the threads where so many other people have it as well.

LOL!!

This has been a thing since before Google.

I had it in the early part of the millenium.

Back then, it was thought that it was a local tic, like a twitch, that was thought to be caused by overstimulation of the nerves. Another theory was that it came from constricting the nerves in the groin area, much like the burning sensation some people get in their thighs.

I'll see if I can find it again, it was a long time ago.

May be meralgia parasthetica. A numbness and tingling in the outer thigh sometimes caused by wearing a tight belt like a heavy tool belt around the waist.

dryfc said:
I can see it's been a couple of years now but since your description PERFECTLY DESCRIBES my own current experience I'm wondering if you have any update?

I had the same symptoms, and as nurses, we get concerned and start ruling out anything and everything. That started when I was sitting at the computer 12 hours/day.

Went away when I started working out.

Peace.

Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.

phantom vibration syndrome - PubMed - NCBI

There is literature on it.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

RiskManager, I don't think those articles pertain. They refer to a hallucination of vibration where folks actually think their cell phone is vibrating. I think the OP is referencing an actual feeling of vibration in the groin. The cell phone was just used as an example of similar vibration in the OP, not that folks actually think they feel a phone.

I have experienced this but was unaware that anyone else ever had.

Let me clarify.

1. it FEELS like your cell phone is going off in your pocket (vibration). There is not an actual cell phone in the picture.

2. It lasts weeks, months. . .not just a few minutes. You experience it on/off throughout the day everyday - mine started a couple weeks ago.

3. when I look it up on the internet - tons and tons of threads in places from other people who experience the same thing - but no one has ever found out what causes it.

Some people think its a pinched nerve somewhere. Others have gotten tested for MS over it (which was negative). Some say they have increased potassium, magnesium, and so on, and sort of helped or it went away.

I've just taken a multivitamin last couple nights - no luck yet. lol

And MANY, if not all, have said they've never heard of it before, and thought they were crazy until they found the threads where so many other people have it as well.

Alien abductions. Millions of people are walking around with implanted alien technology. I read it on the internet.

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