Do you experience painful leg cramps during the night? Here is what you can do
We all have experienced those painful leg cramps, which gave us a quick experience of hell. Well, leg cramps can occur to people of all ages. However, they become frequent with ageing. People above 50 are the ones who mostly report the issue of serious night leg cramping, which makes it difficult for them to have a good night sleep. According to a study among people who are 50 and above, 50% of them experienced night leg cramping and 15% of them were experiencing these cramps once every week.
Causes: Cramps are muscle spasms when nerves powering muscle contraction go crazy and starts firing in nonstop mode, to which the muscle responds by cramping. Leg cramps are most commonly observed among people with certain foot disorders like flat feet or high arches. Other causes include metabolic disorders and certain neurological diseases like Parkinson’s disorder or neuropathy (nerve damage). Cramps are observed among otherwise healthy people too, for which the reason may be dehydration or electrolyte imbalance such as low level of potassium or magnesium in your blood.
Treatments:
Keep yourself hydrated well. You may also try gently massaging your leg muscles or cooling the muscles with a cold-moist cloth. When you experience these painful leg cramps at night, it’s advised to stand up and bend forward. And try touching your toes. If you don’t want to get out of your bed, then sit up, raise your hand and bend forward as much as you can. Now raise your knees toward your face so that you can feel the stretch.
You may also do regular leg stretching in order to lessen the occurrence of night leg cramps.
· For this, try forward stretching stand facing a wall. Keeping a distance of around 2 feet between your feet and the wall, raise your hands such as your palms face the wall.
· Now slowly lean towards the wall, till your hands touch the wall. Try staying in this position for as long as you can.
· Repeat this few times a day. The most important set of this stretching is right before your bed-time.
Although there exist few medicines (mostly quinine) in the market to stop the occurrence of cramps in your legs, only people with disabling cramping are advised to go for medication. I do not recommend medication to people otherwise, since studies have shown few side effects associated with these medications and no medical authority approves these medications to be used to treat cramping.
Dr. Parth Parekh
DNB(Orthopaedic) ; D (Orthopaedic) ; M.N.A.M.S (Orthopaedic)
Consultant Orthopaedic Foot And Ankle Surgeon
CIMS Hospital
Science City Road,
Sola,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat India 380060
+91 9712300124
www.drparthparekh.com
www.cims.org