Leg cramp ... lingering pain...

[brockenspectre]

Hi all

Apologies if this has been covered before in this forum but without the search function I have trawled umpteen previous pages of threads and couldn't find the topic.

Two nights ago I woke, about 0430, with THE most massive cramp in my right calf. Hopped out of bed, jumped around like a bit of a loony, and after a while managed to get back to sleep. Since then the calf "muscle" has remained painful and fortunately for me I have today off work - I say fortunately, because however much I try not to, I am limping and the leg hurts more than it did yesterday!! I feel a bit of an idiot!! A hot bath seemed to ease the pain a little but ..is it possible I have actually pulled the muscle? and ... what do I do? Are there any vitamins/minerals I need to take? Any particular remedies you can recommend please?

I would like this not to recur and in the interim would like to stop having a painful leg!

Thanks, in advance, for any advice/comments! :ok:

[hifive11]

I feel for you, I know what you are going through. I too have had similar but actually in the quadricep muscle at the top of the thigh - agony is not a strong enough word and it went on for some time and I couldnt seem to stretch it out. It also felt as if it was going to go back into spasm again for sometime after.

It was sore the next couple of days or so, I think it is something to do with going in to such a strong spasm. However, if it carries on being painfull in the calf see a doctor , if nothing else he may be able to prescibe quinine tablets (if they are allowed) which help with night leg cramps.

In the meantime, take it carefully, I get quite a few leg cramps at night and can feel them coming on so manage to strech before it gets really bad, mind you if it happens whilst asleep there is not much you can do about it.

Hope you will be pain free soon :ouch:

[timmcat]

Brocky!

Know what you mean, right leg, lower calf, just as I am stretching, can feel the potential agony - have learnt to stop it in time. If I don't, and get the cramp, its sore for a few days.

Not much help, but you're not on your own!

[Mr_Grubby]

Brocky,

Go see your GP immediately. I used to have cramps all over. Two years ago I had a severe one and ended up unconscious for 15 mins. and stopped breathing for 3 mins.
Fortunately the Hospital people got me going again. It turned out to be a blood clot. I lost my CAA Class One Medical Cert. for good. I was an ATCO at West Drayton. End of career. Now I take 300mg of Quinine Sulphate every day (amongst other things !) I am now ok.

Mr G.

[andyb99]

grubby is right, get your self to get that checkout asap.
it may not be dangerous, but its at least nice to get it taken care of.

as for the vitamin, you asked about, there are specific vitamins that heal damaged tissue, one of which i think is vitamin c (heals tissue, damaged blood vessels and prefents infection, basically, protects your body). what i do it take a multivitamin a day (centrum) along with 3 vitamin c. you dont need to worry about overdosing on vitamin c as it is water soluable, any excess will just be peed out.

good luck

[Boss Raptor]

I went through several years of getting severe cramp in both several toes at once or my whole foot they would twitch and then literally point down at 45-60' from my leg...the pain was unbelievable and the spasm used to last about 4 minutes on average...leaving all the foot and/or toe muscles very painful afterwards as they had been stretched...

I never found out the cause and one day it just stopped

[aviate1138]

Boss Raptor said.......

"I went through several years of getting severe cramp in both several toes at once or my whole foot they would twitch and then literally point down at 45-60' from my leg...the pain was unbelievable and the spasm used to last about 4 minutes on average...leaving all the foot and/or toe muscles very painful afterwards as they had been stretched..."

Aviate 1138 says try this.....

Stand about 2-3 feet away from a wall, maybe a little further if you are tall. Keeping your feet flat on the floor, lean forward with your hands on the wall so that you feel the tendons on the back of your leg tighten up. Without unduly straining, lean even more forward so that the tendons are being stretched. Do this all slowly and allow about 30 seconds or so of tendon stretching. Push yourself away from the wall and stand upright. Relax. Repeat after another 30 seconds and move a little further away from the wall to stretch the tendons a little more. I have used this technique and have not had cramps for years. I also take a sachet of re-hydrating powder, Dioralite [ Boots Chemists] once a week to top up my trace elements and re-hydrate my fluid levels. It has helped many of my pals who used to get the leg cramps badly. In fact on any long distance flights I use 1 or 2 Dioralite sachets [add 200ml water] and it seems to work for me.

Aviate 1138

[brockenspectre]

Thanks for all feedback and advice - glad I am not alone. I will, judging by reaction from friends, make an app with GP to be sure it "just" a cramp and .. will deffo look into the rehydration thing.

Thank you so much y'all! I have to say it has been a tad worrying - being worse and limping today when the cramp was two nights ago!

:ok:

[Loose rivets]

More salt. If you are tempted to cut out salt because of modern thinking, try increasing it again, just for a while.

If you are awake as it starts, it is possible to really concentrate on relaxing it, and sometimes achieve an immediate unlocking. I had a bad spell while doing sports when i was around 30, and i found that i could just get control of it about 70% of the time. I imagined the muscles relaxing, blood flowing easily through the leg, in other word mental imagery. The concentration had to be absolute.

There was not the worry about salt then and i poured it on everything. The problem stopped almost right away.

[Flyin'Dutch']

Hi Brockenspectre,

Cramp can indeed be a sign of a lack of salt (or a number of other minerals) but that is not such a common cause for it in the UK with its moderate climate.

Lack of salt in the blood (hyponatriemia) is can be the result of taking certain medication or in hot climes excessive perspiration or excess drinking of non isotonic fluids.

I would echo the advice given already to go and see you local healthcare professional as they can tell you what the most likely cause is and exclude the few more potential serious ones quickly.

They can also do a quick bloodtest to see if you are indeed lacking salt.

HTH

FD

[Boss Raptor]

Salt well I never put 2 and 2 together...at that time I ate an almost salt free and very low fat diet...which as i have become less health conscious has now a regular but small intake of salt in cooking, on chips etc...and yes that does seem to co-incide with the ending of the spasms ;)

[pipergirl]

as far as I am aware muscle cramps are caused by a lack of potassium.....you'll find loads of potassium in bananas/strawberries...

A few years ago, I had the most horrible cramp in my calf when I was in bed. (I got around it by stretching my leg and bringing my foot/toes up towards me) For a few days, I felt as if I had pulled a muscle and it was very sore, but I just took it easy and didn't do any sports etc for a few days until it worked it's way out....

If you're worried about, then there's no harm going to the doctor...:ok:

[spork]

It’s interesting to see the various ideas here. I've had exactly the same thing. The lingering pain seems proportionate to how bad the original cramp was. When I gave up salt I nearly died through the stress of waking up screaming in the middle of the night, or rather the threats of strangulation by my wife.

Loose rivets' advice is correct, about getting control. You really have to stop the muscle from cramping in the first place. The other thing I find helps is warmth. The cramping seems related to a drop in temperature. A typical scenario with foot cramp would be going straight to bed on arriving home late, and within an hour or so, awful cramps. Coming home, changing into slippers and allowing my feet to “air” and cool down a bit whilst in use, made a huge difference.

It's obviously never bad advice to consult your doctor over any concern though.

OMG I’ve admitted to slipper-wearing now…

[Loose rivets]

Just a thought, while we're on the subject of salt. While passing a news stand, i noticed a broad-sheet...The European or some such...and taking up a good chunk of the front page was an article on M.E. and salt.

One of my contemporaries daughters was working at my local for 6 hours a week because she could not go to collage to study art - due to this little understood malaise. She had been in a wheelchair for around a year. I mentioned the article. Coincidence or not, she made the most incredible recovery. I drew no conclusions with a sample of one, but it was great to see her full of life again. Who knows?

[I-matung]

Something else to consider. Posture.

I used to experience sufficent shooting, sharp pains through my thighs to bum cheeks that caused me to leave my Boeing seat in order to releive the pain. Cramps? Not really, but I was in pain every 20 minutes or so.

Went to the Doc, and he said he'd seen this all before, particularly with Farmers who drive tractors for long hours. After bending me like Gumby for some time, he told me to alter the seat position in the aircraft I then crewed. Lower the lumber support to it's lowest position and keep the seat back totally erect at 90 degrees.

My problem was then fixed.

Hope this offers some help.

[gofer]

Q. Flying hours patterns & cramps - do they line up at all ?


Had a thread about this a while back - when I get a mo I'll try and get you a link, but no promises over the next few days...

When I was Paxing heavily - 500-1000h a year on long haul - 12 to 36h after a 3 day period with 20+ h in the air (or 4 days with 25-30h .... or 35h in a week type of thing) I would get such cramps which totally locked the leg or in one case both legs - which caused me to wake a full hotel at LAX-AP with the screams of agony in the middle of the night.

Have learnt to sense the start of such and have found deep/hard muscle massage to be able to halt the oncoming cramps nearly always now.

Can be staved off I find with enough Magnesium and Potassium pills also - start day of first flight cycle and ramp up to max dose within the 1st 2 days .... continue till 2-3 days after last flight sequence and wind down for another 2 or 3 days to zero again.

Only started around 45... problem peeked (as did the travel) as I worked my way through my 50's.

The salt logic makes a bit of sense - probably taking Isotonic drinks (Isostar or a generic) would have even more effect.

Fee free to take this offline if you want....


____________________________________________________
Soar with the eagles, or scratch with the chickens
Iknow my choice...........................:ok:

[gingernut]

Woahhh chaps....careful on the salt thing. It is very unlikely that lack of salt is the cause of your symptoms BS.

Increasing salt in your diet is unlikely to solve your problems, but it may increase the amount of fluid your body retains, increasing your bp and leading to all sorts of unpleasantries !!

I take it you've seen the doc to rule out a clot ?

[gofer]

Follow this to what was said 2 years ago link to previous thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60413&perpage=15&highlight=cramps&pagenumber=1).

Personally I feel after reading both threads again, that we have moved forward some - but still not enough. Some of you out there must have better info.

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:ok:

[AerBabe]

Good grief - is it really 18 months since that thread?
I'm still thrashing around in bed some nights. :O