According to medical statistics, almost eighty percent of people living on the planet experience sudden acute compressive pain in the leg muscles with varying frequency. This unpleasant phenomenon is a cramp. In cases where this pathology is observed infrequently, it should not cause concern in a person. However, the onset of sudden pain significantly reduces the quality of life. Both children and the elderly suffer from seizures, but older people are most susceptible to this pathology.
What causes leg cramps? The causes of such an unpleasant and painful phenomenon may be the following:
- lack of calcium or magnesium;
- lack of vitamin D in the body;
— pathology of the thyroid gland;
- intense physical activity.
An insufficient amount of mineral elements in the body can result from taking certain medications that interfere with their absorption. Such drugs are adsorbents (for example, activated carbon).
Eating dry food and anemia is what causes leg cramps. Unfortunately, the ever-accelerating pace of modern life leaves us almost no time to take care of our own health and spend more time in the fresh air. This is another reason why leg cramps occur. Pathology may result from excess intake of caffeine and nicotine into the body. Therefore, you should reduce your coffee consumption and reduce the number of cigarettes smoked during the day. If you have frequent muscle spasms, you should consume limited amounts of sugar.
Why are leg cramps becoming common? In the case when they were preceded by a long period of feeling of heaviness, pain and swelling in the lower extremities, this, as a rule, indicates the occurrence of varicose veins. If the patient takes diuretics recommended for hypertension, this will also help answer the question of what causes leg cramps. Muscle spasms are often the result of cardiac pathologies that cause electrolyte imbalance.
Leg cramps become common during pregnancy. They occur in the first trimester simultaneously with toxicosis. The main reason for this unpleasant phenomenon is considered to be a change in the level of microelements in a woman’s body.
An important influence on the occurrence of unpleasant and painful sensations in the lower extremities is also exerted by the deterioration of blood circulation in them. It can be a consequence of various diseases of the body. At the same time, the muscles do not receive the required amount of nutrients and spasm.
Leg cramps at night cause particular discomfort and anxiety. Treatment should begin with a visit to the doctor to exclude the possibility of serious illness. If pathologies are present, an appropriate course of therapy will be recommended. For night cramps, folk healers' recipes recommend foot baths made from a decoction of thyme or chamomile, elderberry or hawthorn. For this procedure, you can use walnut leaves, birch buds or black elderberry.
Complaints of calf muscle cramps at night regularly occur in a large number of people of different ages and professions. This unpleasant phenomenon affects both young people and old people, children and pregnant women. If we look at statistics, we can see that leg cramps occur at least once in every person’s life. As a rule, this phenomenon does not cause any concern, since it happens very rarely. But if nighttime muscle spasms in the legs recur regularly, it is imperative to seek medical help and understand the causes of this disorder.
Cramps are involuntary and sudden muscle contractions, which are often accompanied by pain and other unpleasant sensations during an attack, and sometimes after it.
There are 2 main types of cramps in the calf muscles:
You should know that cramps that occur in the calves of the legs, due to their prevalence, received their own separate name - cramps. They usually occur at night when stretching the lower extremities, causing a person to abruptly wake up from unbearable pain.
To understand why your legs cramp at night and how to get rid of it, you need to understand the very nature of muscle contraction and the reasons why this process may be disrupted.
A simplified diagram of skeletal muscle contraction can be represented as follows:
The process of muscle contraction is a very complex biochemical process.
A disturbance at any of the described levels of contraction can cause the development of seizures. They can lead to:
There are a large number of diseases and pathological conditions that can lead to leg cramps. Depending on the level of impairment and cause (described above), they can be classified as follows.
Excessive frequent brain impulses:
Large amounts of acetylcholine in synaptic clefts:
Reducing the threshold of muscle fiber excitability:
Deficiency of microelements in the body often causes cramps in the calves
Decrease in ATP concentration:
The first thing you need to do in a situation where a cramp grabs your leg is to recognize its cause. That is, to distinguish an epileptic seizure from others. This is fundamentally important, since the first aid algorithm will depend on this.
How to recognize a seizure in epilepsy: The main symptom of such a seizure is its stages. Initially, clonic contractions occur, which after 10-15 seconds are replaced by tonic contractions lasting 10 seconds or more. After this, the spasm goes away and the muscle relaxes. The second sign that may indicate epilepsy is the aura before the onset of a seizure. It may be different for each patient: bright flickering light, a certain taste and smell, loud sounds, etc. Also, with epilepsy, there is a risk of a partial seizure becoming a full-fledged generalized epileptic seizure with loss of consciousness, retrograde amnesia, involuntary urination, etc.
Signs of a generalized epileptic seizure, which may begin with partial spasms of the calf muscles
If a person has a partial epileptic seizure of convulsions in the leg, then first aid is to sit him on the floor in order to avoid head injuries and other injuries due to loss of consciousness and falling in the event of a generalized attack. Next, you just need to wait for the end of the attack without taking any action (if the attack is partial).
If the seizure is not associated with epilepsy, the following actions should be taken:
During a cramp, you need to pull your foot up; this action helps to quickly relax the muscle and eliminate the spasm.
As a rule, the cramp goes away on its own. But the shorter it is, the lower the risk of developing pain in the calf muscle after it. Otherwise, you may need to take additional painkillers for several days after the cramp.
The basic rule in the treatment of calf muscle cramps is the rapid relief of an acute attack and elimination of its cause. In cases where the etiology of the pathological condition cannot be established, symptomatic and pathogenetic therapy is resorted to.
Prescribing medications to prevent subsequent seizures depends entirely on the cause.
In the case where the underlying disease is fully compensated, the patient will not experience seizures. But very often the nature of muscle spasms in the calves remains unknown, and doctors associate it with an imbalance of certain minerals or vitamins. In such cases, specialists most often prescribe the following medications to patients:
Mydocalm perfectly eliminates muscle spasms and can prevent cramps in the leg muscles
If your legs often cramp in your sleep, then you definitely need to reconsider your diet. It is important to enrich the menu with foods high in vitamin D, calcium, magnesium and potassium.
Include the following foods in your diet:
The following recommendations will not only help you get rid of cramps in your calves, but also prevent their occurrence in the future:
Although in most cases, calf muscle cramps are not life-threatening, they significantly reduce the patient's quality of life, especially when they occur very frequently. Therefore, you need to pay special attention to finding the cause of muscle spasms, eliminating them with the help of medications and other means, and also taking preventive measures daily so that you never feel this unbearable pain again.
Muscle cramps can occur at any age, but are more common in middle-aged and older adults.
In some cases, leg cramps are a symptom of diseases such as atherosclerosis (intermittent claudication), diabetes, varicose veins, cirrhosis of the liver, thyroid disease and others. Therefore, if you experience persistent and severe muscle cramps, you should consult a doctor.
However, most often leg cramps are observed in “practically healthy individuals” against the background of heavy physical exertion, muscle fatigue, in overweight people, under stress, and a sedentary lifestyle.
Let's figure out what is the cause of cramps, what causes the muscle to be in a state of continuous contraction?
At rest, a muscle cell is electrically charged. This is achieved by the fact that there is a lot of potassium inside the cell, and more sodium outside. The difference between potassium and sodium ions is maintained by the work of cellular pumps that pump out sodium and absorb potassium. Thanks to the electrical charge, the muscle cell can contract.
Under the influence of nerve impulses, the cell quickly discharges, and calcium rushes into it.
Calcium is the element that makes the cell do the work for which it is intended. The muscle cell contracts. The release of calcium into the cell is accompanied by the entry of sodium and the exit of potassium. While there is a lot of calcium in the cell cavity, it is in a state of spasm.
Relaxation (recharging) of the cell occurs due to:
• releasing calcium from it using calcium pumps;
• scooping out sodium and pumping in potassium using sodium-potassium pumps.
Cellular pumps take up to 40% of the energy produced by the cell!
Now that we understand the nature of muscle contraction and cramps, we will try to cope with the task of preventing leg cramps.
- the main hero in the fight against cramps: magnesium
• First, magnesium acts as a plug that prevents calcium from entering the cell.
• Further, magnesium is required for the functioning of cellular pumps.
• Finally, all processes of formation and expenditure of cellular energy are impossible without magnesium.
It may be that 75% of people suffer from leg cramps because approximately 80% of people are deficient in magnesium. This is due to the fact that it is impossible to obtain the required daily intake of magnesium (about 400 mg) from a standard diet. Magnesium deficiency is further aggravated by the fact that there are many factors that predispose to magnesium loss.
Magnesium deficiency is very difficult to determine based on blood levels. Even with severe deficiency, it enters the blood from bones and muscles and masks the deficiency. Therefore, experts recommend focusing on typical symptoms of magnesium deficiency.
Severe magnesium deficiency is almost impossible to eliminate with food. Additional intake of magnesium supplements is required, which can be registered as dietary supplements or as medications.
Among the recommendations for additional magnesium intake for seizures, one can find daily dosages of 800 mg of magnesium or more. However, this is most likely not necessary. Healthy kidneys can easily increase magnesium output by 250 times. Therefore, for chronic seizures, it is best to stick to saturating dosages of 100-200 mg for a long time (four weeks or more).
- magnesium’s closest ally in the fight, oddly enough, is calcium
The paradox of calcium is that with its deficiency, seizures sharply increase - this is the leading symptom of not only magnesium deficiency, but also calcium (Table 5). In addition, calcium is a physiological partner of magnesium in a 2:1 ratio. In other words, by consuming additional magnesium, we should simultaneously receive double the amount of calcium.