Muscle cramps in calf
 

Over the past few months, I think it's happened to me three times. And maybe once more throughout the rest of my life (maybe more but I seriously don't remember). I'll go to stretch out my leg (always my left) and the calf muscle seizes up. It hurts like a bitch until I massage it a bit. Then it's fine, although the muscle is sore the next day ;). The last time it happened was at about 5:00 AM this morning while I was mostly asleep. I have a few questions about this.

1) Should I be worried about this? As in, see the doctor?

2) How can I prevent this? Should I stretch more often? It seems odd to stretch before going to bed, but hey.

3) Is this caused by laying on the muscle/nerves the wrong way (e.g. the extreme opposite of it falling asleep)?

Well, thanks for any input.

This has happened to me randomly throughout my life. I don't imagine its that big of a deal. Make sure you're getting your electrolites, and that might help. Eat a banana, have a sports drink, etc.

He's right. It has something to do with electrolites.

I've had it happen a couple of times too, mainly when I would go for a big (5+ miles) run. HURT LIKE HELL.

ditto these guys, but stretching more often can't hurt. And it's unlikely to be caused by lying on it funny IMO.

Okay, thanks. I'll stock up on bananas and Powerade. :)

Easy on the powerade... Im pretty sure there's no scientific proof as to why calf cramps actually happen, but its speculated that dehydration could be part of it. I'd try drinking a lot more water before drinking powerade..as well as stretching..

Heh, I wasn't gonna put the local vendor's kid through college, just think about having maybe one a day (I load the machines at my school so I get freebies). But either way, I'll drink more fluids.

I'll tell you what hurts. The same thing, except it happens to the muscle between your balls and butthole, the PC maybe. Whoa, that hurts.

Eat more banana's. Also when you get a cramp stretch out your leg and tilt your foot up as far as you can. Try to make your heel stick out as far as possible. The cramp will go away in a few seconds.

There's an accupressure trick to alleviate the cramping in your legs (especially when they occur in the middle of the night)

Pinch your upper lip with your thumb and forefinger for a few seconds -- that generally relaxes the cramping.

(and my doc says eat more bananas -- it's a potassium defincincy that causes the cramping - you will bruise less too)

Yeah, that's worked for me before. It didn't work the other night, but I probably did it wrong. It's not like you're thinking straight at 5 AM.

Yeah, same thing happens to me quite regularily.. basically I massage it, it hurts the next day, then goes away.
seems to somewhat happen when I'm dehydrated, but not always...
I just live with it.

I used to have this problem nightly when I was pregnant. Dr told me the same thing. She gave me a prenatal vitamin complex with extra, potassium, folate, and iron. It seemed to help.

I also had lots of water retention because I had poor circulation to the lower extremities - don't know if that contributes.

electrolyte deficiency... improve your diet pre, during , and post workouts and you'll soon see improvement.

To prevent cramps, drink lots of water and get a lot of Potassium into your system (bananas)

Potassium is an electrolyte along with
sodium
chloride
calcium
magnesium
bicarbonate
phosphate
sulfate

You can find several of these electrolytes in the energy drinks like Gatoraid.