Last week I wrote a post about my chronic cramping issues:
Oops! Blame it on my nightly cramps!
At the end I asked readers to pass-along helpful tips about what works for them. I received suggestions by email and in the comment section following my post. Some were good, plain-old common sense. Others exhibited creative “outside the box” thinking.
Roz, Bob and others reminded me to stay hydrated and drink plenty of water.
Since most of my–and other patient’s–cramps are in our feet and shins, Gary emailed me a link to a story on the People’s Pharmacy site about placing a bar of soap under your sheets before bedtime:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2005/12/07/soap-under-the/
By the way, I already do that–and I think it helps! But as I reminded readers, I’m an advanced case.
Think soap under the sheets is crazy? How about Judy’s more mechanical cure?
Hi Pat-
I’ve found the cure for the leg cramps and you don’t have to swallow any of it!
Before I had MM, I had plantar fasciitis and wore these boots at night until I was cured – took about 3 months.
Now that I have LEG CRAMPS from Revlimid, I thought to give the boots a try and they WORKED. I made them a lot looser and can easily slip in and out of them to go to the bathroom at night, because you’re not supposed to walk in them. NO MORE LEG CRAMPS. jm
Fascinating! Judy even passed pictures along:
Judy feels the key is not allowing your foot to extend. Fascinating!
If you didn’t see it, Mary commented this way following my post:
Hey Pat … I hear ya on the shin cramps, they are the worst! Since I don’t like taking meds, especially in pill form, I use STOP PAIN for my shin/calf cramps. You can get it in either a spray or a roll on bottle. I use the roll on and it stops those cramps within seconds!
When my potassium levels run low, my doctor gives me a potassium script, in liquid form, that I take for 10 days. Otherwise I just eat a banana once a day.
But for those times when you need immediate relief from those crippling leg cramps …. try STOP PAIN it really works…. for me anyway.
Several readers recommended drinking Gatorade. I hadn’t thought of that! Another recommended exercising more. For some, this might be a great idea! Heck, we should all exercise more. And I could see how improving circulation and moving more might help a more sedentary person. But like those of us that exercise a lot could tell you, over-exercising can make PM cramping worse.
Balance, balance, balance! Are you detecting a pattern here? For some of us, its a potassium or magnesium imbalance. Others it might be low calcium levels. Or our calcium levels could be too high. This is a common problem for myeloma survivors with kidney issues.
We might need more electrolytes–and that’s why Gatorade might help.
But even if all of those things lie smack dab in the middle of the normal range, the chemotherapy drugs we take can overpower our best intentions and jerk our body chemistry out of balance again. That’s why some of us need to try what might be perceived as desperate measures in order to sleep through the night cramp-free.
Go back and read the comments after last week’s post. And stay tuned. I still haven’t discussed L-Lysine–a surprisingly controversial remedy for PM cramping.
So keep those great and innovative suggestions coming!
Feel good and keep smiling! Pat
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