@z_graeden 24 May 2021 more from that month

Muscle Cramps

Have you ever experience that pain in your leg during sleep that it will make you sprung up from bed? Never did I experienced such until I studied at the lowlands on my final year in highschool. Most lowland areas are hot,humid places. Elders would tell you not take a bath during the hottest time of day and at night so better take a bath early in the morning because they believed that cold vapors may enter your body through the pores and would cause some illness.They are people who are very health conscious but some of their beliefs have no medical explanation,I respected it tho. But what I'm sharing to you now, I know is medical related in relation with their belief. One night,I was awaken by this severe pain in one of my legs.It was so painful I cried, I can see the muscles tightening and contracting,tried to massage it but it aggravated the pain instead of relieving.Maybe it lasted a minute or two.It was my first time. I even cried. I thought maybe I was being played with someone out their who has something against me. Because not to brag but I was good in school, my classmates and some teachers even told me to transfer at the A section but I declined. I thought maybe someone was jealous of me. Honestly, that place still have those traditional healers/hilot, mangkukulam and that was what I feared, na bka ako'y pinakulam😛. Because it was my very first time to experience such that I told my sister about it the very moment she woke up. She told me, it was a leg cramp. Medics explain that leg cramps occur when millions of tiny fibres contract to form a painful knot. One of the most common known types are "***nocturnal***" leg and foot cramps, awakens people at the middle of the night with excrutiating paroxysms of pain. The victim usually springs out of bed and vigorously massages the muscle to secure relief. After a while he will go back to bed, sometimes only to leap up again with a relapse. Some people experience nocturnal leg and foot cramps every night;some several times nightly; some occasionally. Another condition, called "***restless legs***" is not quite a cramp but spasm of the leg muscles which generally occurs during sleep and is described by a sensation of pulling, twisting and stretching. In some cases the sufferer doesn't experience true spasms but the uncomfortable feeling that he must keep the legs moving.Although "restless legs" and nocturnal leg cramps are considered as separate disorders, they frequently torment the same person. There is another type of leg cramping called "***intermitent claudication***."It strikes during walking and relieved by rest.The cramp may occur in the foot or thigh,but the most common site is in the calf of the leg. The condition starts slowly but gradually worsens, and the painful cramping may be accompanied by extreme fatigue. Some people find they can only walk a short distance and suddenly feel the symptoms and can't go no further. Immediate rest brings relief, but the symptoms can occur again as the walked is resumed. Claudication is a problem of poor circulation in the legs.

However, medical studies also states that frequent cramping,spasms or claudication is a symptom of some vitamin deficiency or some underlying medical conditions. In my experience, I suffered the first two because they are co-related so that when I woke up in the morning and tried to get out of bed I can still feel pain in my affected leg even when walking that sometimes I walk to school like limping. Perhaps,my walking to and from school which is I think 2-3 kilometers from my sister's house added to the tension.Plus I immediately washed the soiled clothings and cloth nappies of my niece in the late afternoon when I came home from school. The use of shoes makes my feet warm and I don't have rubber boots to use in washing so that my feet would be protected from the water allowing my body to have direct contact from it. Thus, the water vapors enter my body gradually which caused me to experience nocturnal leg cramps. The third one,intermintent claudication am experiencing every now and then. I would stop on my walk specially when I was pregnant which I think contributes to it.. So taking vitamins while pregnant really helps not only the fetus but the mother as well as nutrients are divided between the two. Additionally, my sister's mother-in-law was suffering leg cramps frequently. One late night when everyone's peacefully asleep I heard her crying, really crying downstairs. So I went down to investigate. She was massaging both her calves with a herbal oil. I asked her why and she told me her thighs were too painful. So I went to her and massaged it though I really don't know how to. Until she was a little relieved and stopped sniffling when she told me, "ustu daytan, 'nakong. Inka maturugen. Salamat" (That will do, child. Thank you. You can go sleep now.) Everytime I hear her cry in pain at night, I would go to her. But I was wondering if it was considered muscle cramps because it takes time massaging it before she felt relief. As I was experiencing these ones I tried to search it on google then I learned that eating electrolyte foods such as those rich in potassium, magnesium, sodium and calcium helps relieve and stops frequent attacks. *This was a repost from my article some 9 months ago*. 05-25-21 *****z_graeden*****