Remedies for the excruciating pain of charley horse leg cramps

each week look forward to receiving questions about health and wellness from viewers like you and it's time to tackle today's health matters question hi dr. Santora I'm Ann from Redlands I get charley horses when I sleep and I was curious if there is any type of medication I can take to prevent them and that's a very good question I get this every day in my office every single day a charley horse is mainly a contraction of the muscles and the cap and in the feet is very very painful one way to prevent them is to put your hands against the wall and stretch your feet out flat on the floor and stretch out the calf one very important thing to prevent those is being well hydrated drinking plenty of water it seems when the muscles are dehydrated you tend to get more cramps eating foods like bananas that are rich in potassium is very very helpful maintaining a magnesium intake a magnesium supplement is very very important or taking magnesium and calcium supplements may work better for some people you can also try it to prevent it's taking coenzyme q-10 which helps prevent muscle cramps especially in people who are taking statin types of medications let's say you get a bad cramp what do you do well a very effective medicine in a very old medicine is quinine sulphate it's a prescription drug and if you can take two to three hundred milligrams a day this will often eradicate the cramps if you get them every night then take it just before going to bed if you don't have that available tonic water tonic water is very high in quinine take a half a glass of this you'll get many people get relief within you know three or four minutes some people report taking yellow mustard a teaspoon or two of yellow mustard when they get the cramps causes relief in three to four maybe ten minutes exactly why we're not sure pickle juice is another method to relieve muscle cramps a lot of people report that taking an ounce or two of pickle juice which is high in sodium and other minerals tends to relieve the cramps in them in about 10 minutes but the secret weapon the secret weapon in preventing leg cramps is putting a bar soap at the foot of the bed wrapped or unwrapped in the about one or two weeks people have reported that this dramatically decreased their late grams it's a mystery why it works but for some people report that it works leg cramps a very big problem we have lots of solutions in preventing it and treating it very good question and thanks for asking

Channel: DrLarrySantora

Views: 513,262

Keywords: health, leg, cramp, leg cramp, charley horse, Larry Santora, Health Matters, remedy, pain, stretch, yt:crop=16:9

Id: X8YtUgF2_YQ

Length: 2min 35sec (155 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 19 2013