Thursday morning I was awaken out of a dead slumber to a rude surprise. The calve muscle in my right leg seized up into a charlie horse bearing incredible pain. Half awake I attempted to stretch my leg while in bed but it was a no go. I stumbled out of bed and onto the floor in sheer desperation to straighten my tightly woven leg to get the muscle knot out.
Now I have had some of these cramps recently (over the past month to month and a half usually in the lower leg but sometimes in the foot). However, by stretching out my legs or feet I am usually able to loosen the muscle, gain relief, and return to sleep. Unfortunately the one on Thursday was a doozy and the worst I have yet (as far as recent muscle cramps are concerned).
Sprawled on the floor I eventually managed to unseize the muscle knot. Yet when I tried to stand up, my leg was in pain and it was even more difficult to walk normally and balance as I stumbled into the bathroom ramming my body parts into walls, doors jams, and shelves. In fact, the muscle has still been sore and tender over the last 3 days and upon first getting up I limp around or need to carefully descend the stairs.
What is the cause? Well it could be any number of things but I have put my money on the medication that I am currently taking, the Diamox, which depletes the body of potassium and sodium. There are different causes of leg cramps but this type generally occurs during sleep or when first awakening. Here is a great link explaining it: http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?objectid=527C9615-0194-419C-B6E7208C9CE140A4
While growing up I did have extreme leg pains at night when I was a kid. My mom told me it was because I needed some orthodic shoes or from growing pains. The pains seemed to subside as a teen and happened very rarely until I was a freshman in college. While doing laps in a pool for a swimming class, my calve muscle seized. Seeing as I was in water over my head, I had to grasp the lane buoy and a classmate came to my rescue to help stretch the leg.
Other than that, I only got these lower leg muscle cramps once in a blue moon when doing a long surface swim while diving. It is not an uncommon occurrence as one is exerting the muscles more on the surface with their fins while lugging cold water gear. Even when I had that type of cramp it was easily remedied by stopping, stretching the leg out, and taking things more slowly.
Knock on wood, my legs have not been cramping up the last 3 mornings as I have been trying hard to consume potassium rich foods: potatoes, squash, raisins, apricots, broccoli, and bananas. Here are a few links about the importance of potassium in the diet and what foods contain it:
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=331
http://www.essense-of-life.com/info/potassiumfoods.htm
http://members.aol.com/belve/dfan/pottas.html
4 comments:
I used to get 'em when I was pregnant - until I started eating a banana every day! As if it wasn't difficult enough to sleep with a thirty-pound weight attached to my gut.
Hmmn. Does pregnancy deplete the body of potassium or is it something to do with the fluid build up in the legs?
Yeah I agree that would really be an annoyance. I can't imagine how one would grasp the toes to stretch the leg with a 30 pound dome to reach over!
So far so good but the muscle is still sore. I seriously need to start doing some stretching everyday. I don't know if it is turning this age or what but I am not very motivated to do it. I do go for long walks daily. I need to exercise the legs or they get weak and my balance worsens.
I have to admit I am having fun eating all these potassium goodies. I had some steamed brocoli today with cheese on it, acorn squash cooked with raisins and dried apricots, and half a ripe banana and raisins in my oatmeal. The bananas are fantastic in hot cereral in place of refined white sugar. I put them in the freezer and cut them in half when I need to use them.
I've gotten those for years! My mom would get them so bad after her last surgery that they'd almost throw her out of her wheelchair.
If I try to stand on it or force the foot into a normal position, I'll sometimes tear the muscle or something and it will take days to heal.
I long ago replaced sugar in my cereal with a banana. My problem is that I'm often in too much of a hurry to eat cereal, or Sally sneaks in and chomps all the bananas. :) We either eat them all right away, or both forget about them and end up tossing four overripe ones in the trash.
Eeek! Don't throw away those good bananas! When they get too ripe for normal eating plop them in the freezer. Ripe bananas make FANTASTIC banana bread (need 3-4 bananas). Also, they are even better tasting the riper they are in hot cereal (oat meal, cream of wheat, 7 grain by Red Mill). I take one out of the freezer and cut it in half and mashed it up in the bowl and microwave it before adding the hot ceral. Or you can mash up however many you like and add it to the hot cereal if you are cooking it on the stove.
Here is the rule:
Green - not ripe
Yellow - Eat at will as a regular fruit
Starting to get brown spots or brown - throw in the freezer. they will keep well in there until you want to use them.
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