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

Old Wives Tales

[peejayuk.livejournal.com]

As others have quite rightly noted elemental salts have a large role to play in leg muscle cramping.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far,far away when I played sports I had similar problems. I found the following quite useful;

1. An hour or so before bed have a hot bath with 3 heaped tablespoons of mustard powder dissolved in it. Soak in bath until water cools. Please note you do not smell of mustard when you get out !!! (This is also good for clearing airway congestion also)

2. Make up a mixture of massage oil. I find using apricot oil base and a 3:2:1 mix of lavender:mandarin:pine works well for me. Rub into affected muscle area in a circle motion kneading with the tips of your thumbs. This one also smells nice and can lead to some interesting things if you have a 'friend' to help.

3. Get your circulation checked out by your G.P. This is not to freak you out but if you have circulatory problems which mean the muscles in your legs are not recieving the necessary nutrients it may be indicative of Reynauds disease which is most commonly found in females (particularly smokers). The fact that it happens mainly (always) at night may be because when your horizontal gravity isn't helping your blood flow to your legs.

Number three is the most unlikely but ...

Hope this is of some help.

Peejay

Re: Old Wives Tales

[nevecat.livejournal.com]

If you've got Reynauds, you'd likely know already from other more obvious synptoms (tendency of fingers and toes to go wax-white bloodless as the slightest hint of cold being the usual one...)

I appear to have been lucky and not inherited it, but quite a few of my family have it (it's basically caused by the blood vessels over-reacting to temperature change and so forth, IIRC)

Re: Old Wives Tales

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my mum has something like it. Never seen any sign of it in me so far though, I'm usually quite good at staying warm when it's chilly.

Re: Old Wives Tales

[peejayuk.livejournal.com]

Yup, Nevecat your right I missed out the obvious symptoms guess that's why I do psychiatry rather than general medicine. *goes scurrying to find his old anatomy txts dammit!!)*

As I said, most unlikely it would be Reynauds. An' it looks like you can rule it out from what i can read in these posts.

Peejay