Old Wives' Tales wanted

[venta]

(Or I suppose sensible medical advice will do)

The past three nights I've woken up repeatedly with really bad cramp in my legs. The sort where your muscles twist into an odd shape, and nothing you do will untwist them. This is painful, and has also left me with increasingly badly pulled muscles in my legs. I'm used to this happening occasionally, but three nights running is pushing it in my book.

Now. I would expect that my high evil-on-toast consumption rate would take care of the lack-of-salt problem. And I've been munching crisps just in case. I've also been drinking a lot of water recently.

What else... ?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_yakumo_/]

I was discussing this the other week with shihan paul, I can only remember having cramp once when i was a kid, but since i've been training heavilly i've oken up on 3 occasions with screamingly bad cramp in one leg that feels as if my muscles are so contracted they're about to shatter the bone..

anyway, he said it's a small misconception that the primary cause is a lack of salt, it tends to be sodium and potasium deficiency, this article seems pretty good ( http://health.discovery.com/diseasesandcond/encyclopedia/554.html ) and mentions a few more things.. including

"In the past, salt tablets were recommended to prevent muscle cramps. However, salt tablets are not useful and should be avoided"


but basically it seems like you need careful excersise & stretching, and more tomatoes/bananas/squash in your diet =)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. And anything that means I get to eat more tomatoes and bananas is a good thing. Mmmm..