Leg Cramps

How's your potassium levels?

Exercising or a lot of physical activity at night can cause these leg cramps to happen. I literally feel your pain, OP!

I only get them when I wake up in the morning.

OP- How old are you?

Three people I know swear by Mag64 (calcium carbonate and magnesium chloride). Works almost immediately for my brother. Slo-Mag, which is higher-priced, works too.

Mysterious... sometimes they will be the most excruciating pain - but can't find a correlation between when they come and don't. Definitely more frequent as I age. Friday I hike miles up a steep mountain. Usually no cramps. Then yesterday my ankles and feet lock up in horrible cramps.

High quality problems I guess.... I mean I am still alive to hike and get cramps, right?

Can also happen if you're dehydrated.

I get them in my feet at night and have to get out of bed, stand up and take a few steps to get rid of the pain. My doctor told me it's part of aging.

Drink pickle juice

Definitely magnesium. Avoid the carbonate one because it has the worst bioavailability and go for the chloride version instead. Just be careful with the dosing because it can trigger the runs real quick.

You can splurge on the citrate version if you want, no runs there and works just as well as the chloride.

I looked at my magnesium supplement bottle and it lists "magnesium oxide" as the key ingredient.

Did you mean "oxide" in stead of "chloride", r10?

Probably leg cancer

Most likely dehydration or electrolyte imbalance. Drink some Gatorade.

[quote]Rubbed some arnica gel on it.

That doesn't do shit. Ingest magnesium in one of the forms with greater bioavailability, like magnesium chloride or magnesium citrate. Don't bother with chelated magnesium or magnesium L-threonate and the like, they're too expensive and not worth it. And be sure to use it on a daily basis or the cramps will return.

Just be careful not to overdo it in a single dose or you'll get the runs.

Eat a fucking banana.

potassium deficient. eat some damn bananas. also, getting your necessary nutrients through food is much better absorbed than by supplements.

A quick remedy which never fails at the time of cramp. Eat a fast food pack of mustard. Like the ketchup packs you get at McDonalds but mustard. I get mine at Bojangles. Instantly stops the cramp and solves the problem for the rest of the night.

If you’re in bed and in the immediate painful throes of a leg or foot cramp and can’t just hop up and eat or drink anything, this usually works: take a really deep breath, exhale repeat. The pain subsides much faster. The deep breathing oxygenates your blood which your cramped muscles are being deprived of and increases circulation. Once you can move again, go consume your bananas and electrolytes.

One thing that stops those calf-muscle cramps that wake you in the middle of the night: try to remember (although it's hard when you're jerked out of sleep!) to flex your foot upwards, toes curled upwards (the opposite of pointing your toes like ballerina toe-points). It will release the spasming calf muscle, usually instantaneously. It's hard to remember when you're ripped from slip into searing pain, but it DOES work.

The calf muscle cramps are easy to fix, just get out of bed and stretch but the toe cramps are miserable. Those have to be walked off.

So we’re gonna skip right over amputation and go straight to magnesium tablets?

R9, Excuse me?

Is this similar to what Celine Dion feels throughout her body?

For Charlie horses just straighten your leg and reach down and pull your toes up toward you

When it happens, try to point your toes up to the ceiling.

You should try shin cramps. If I try to stretch them out I usually just end up with thigh or toe cramps as well!

As you get older, folks, the stretches that work when you're younger are less effective. You can stretch a leg or foot out so the pain stops, though you might have to bend a lot more than when you were younger to get to that point. You can hold like that for five minutes, but as soon as you move it's back. Walking a foot cramp out, it can recur every time your foot leaves the floor.

Are you low on iron? I got Charlie horses frequently when my anemia was at its worst. Now that it's under control, I don't get them anymore. Coincidence or not?

I get them sometimes in my feet at night and they're extremely painful. I get up and walk but those first few steps are torturous.

First time I got one as a teenager I woke up in bed thinking I broke my leg somehow!

OP you need to also do more stretches. And when you are laying down and get a cramp in your caves push your heels down and your feet up.

Yes the shin cramps are really painful because there doesn’t seem to be any way to stretch those.

Don't underestimate how much dehydration affects cramping. I started getting excruciating calf cramps in the early morning in my late 40s. I did the self diagnosis thing and ate a lot of bananas (ick!) which helped, but not totally.

I later described this to my NP as I was having a hot flash in the examining room, wiping my forehead. Her response "Well, you're losing a lot of water." I must have looked blank, so she wiped her forehead. Talk about a light bulb going on. The cramps coincided with terrible hot flashes and night sweats I started having with perimenopause. I upped the water intake - problem solved.

R8 My doctor told me the same thing.

R8 and R33's doctors are lazy.

R27, my iron is at the low end of normal but I've never been anaemic. I used to take magnesium supplements, then a doctor tested my blood for magnesium and said to stop because I was overloaded with the stuff. I was only taking one a day so clearly my own magnesium levels had been fine. I think the tendency to cramping is partly genetic and partly that I don't have a regular enough exercise and stretching routine.

R34 - We want a second opinion.

They're also crazy!

I got a leg cramp/charlie horse once during sex . My partner quickly massaged the leg to calm it down. How sweet he was.