Getting older is no fun.

[cactuswatcher]

Like my mother before me I sometimes get terrible leg cramps. It's odd. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I can feel one coming on. I know that if I move my leg the right way, I'll be fine, and if my leg moves the way it naturally wants to move, I'll be practically screaming in pain. Last night I was too sleepy and didn't move my leg aggressively enough. I don't have much choice once it starts. I've got to get up as quickly as possible and put weight on it. I'm in agony until I do. It hurts so bad to get up, but it hurts worse otherwise. This one was a bad one. I can still feel the effects this morning. I probably need to change my diet a little. That usually keeps the cramps from reoccurring.

I'm really used to Arizona now. The temperature was in the forties this morning, and that's feels awfully cold to me. I don't think I could take temps below zero any more after living here so long.

Very glad to learn this morning that a card I sent to the Great (Once-in-a-While) White North made it in plenty of time.

We had a basketball game shortened by rain last night here in Phoenix! Open roof + raindrops = slick court. What's worse I'm not sure I got a drop of rain at my house. Tonight, it's supposed to get down in the 30's which means I'll have to cover some plants, and move some others inside, just in case. It only happens a few nights a year and usually the plants can all go back outside during the day.

Comments

[bhadrasvapna.livejournal.com]

I used to get horrible leg cramps, much the way you describe them, when I didn't get enough calcium.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I get lots of calcium. But I think it is a mineral deficiency for me as well.

[anomster.livejournal.com]

Sounds awful, CW! Sorry to hear it. I've read that one thing that can help is to stand barefoot on a cold surface--e.g., a tiled bathroom floor. I don't get that type of cramp often, but the cold-surface thing has helped when I've had them. Not an instant cure, but better than just standing up.

I'm not sure if this is related: sometimes when I wake up at night or early in the morning, I feel like I need to stretch my legs out, but when I do they kind of spasm--not as painful as the cramps, it's more that they kick out repeatedly, involuntarily. Purely by accident, I found out that if I stretch my legs heels first--push the heels out--that doesn't happen. Sometimes it seems to prevent the cramps, too. Is that what you mean by moving your leg the right way?

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Sort of. What I can't do is let my legs stretch out toes first. If I curl up my legs and can keep them that way from awhile it's okay and sometimes it's over for the night. Half asleep it isn't as easy as it sounds. If I stretch heel first, it doesn't hurt, but from there if I relax, my toes will stretch out and I get the cramp anyway.

It isn't far to my bathroom and the cool floor, but I can't walk or do anything, until the spasm eases up. I can barely stand up. So that wouldn't help me much.

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

This sounds kinda of-- well, insane, but on the other hand it's completely harmless at worst if it doesn't work. There's this nationally syndicated Dr. guy who had someone write him about it, and he figured it was good for a laugh, until scads of people wrote to tell him that it worked.

I have no idea why from a rational standpoint-- that is, I don't understand the mechanism.

Here's a link. Who knows?

http://www.reallans.com/mmml.shtml?/002240.shtml

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Thanks for looking it up. But, in order for a placebo like this to work you have to have some faith that it could. ;o)