Re: NIGHT TIME FOOT AND TOE CRAMPING


"BillW50" <BillW50@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gklkvg$lfh$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In news:496d83dc.14578921@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Harold Groot typed:
On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:07:04 -0700, "%" <persent@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

is there anything i can do to stop it

Several people (including myself) have found relief from night cramps
by taking extra calcium, magnesium and potassium. For myself I think
the magnesium has been the most important, but others have said they
found the calcium more important, so this is probably one of those
things that varies from person to person.

Potassium is not easily available in pill form in high enough
quantities to help (in the USA, anyway). Anything over 100 mg
elemental potassium requires a prescription. (There are OTC pills
available with higher listed weights, but that's because they are
combinations of potassium with something else.) 100 mg is only about
3% of the RDA. You'd have to take a LOT of pills to be effective.
Instead, try using salt substitutes. "Lite Salt" is half regular salt
(NaCl, sodium chloride) and half KCl (potassium chloride). "Salt
Substitute" is basically pure KCl. Some people find there's an
unpleasant metallic taste to these products, others don't. For me it
tastes just fine (though there's a slighly different "warmth" or
"mouth feel" compared to regular salt.)

Several people have found quinine to be helpful, usually in a Quinine
Water mixer/drink.

There were a couple of other things that people found helped that I
can't think of off hand. This topic comes up regularly, so a Google
search on ("night cramps" diabetes) should pick up those previous
threads.

Wow! That is different than me. As lower leg and foot cramps means to me
that I am getting too much calcium. I also had arthritis for about two
years and I was a heavy milk drinker at the time and I quit drinking milk
and my arthritis totally disappeared just in a few months. I am thinking
that maybe that was due to too much calcium. But maybe it was something
else in the milk.

I read somewhere (I think it was Dr. Mercola's website) that you have to
be careful about Vitamin A and Vitamin D (calcium). As one needs the other
to work. And too much of one or the other can be toxic instead of
beneficial.

Bill

For me, too much calcium caused kidney stones instead - probably more
painful.

I've seen some people say that Dr. Mercola's website is not especially
trustworthy for information that you can't also find elsewhere.

I've also seen a few sites say type 2 diabetics are likely to be short of
vitamin D:

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/57/10/2619

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/

Polar bear liver has too much vitamin A to eat very much of it, and
perhaps too much vitamin D also:

http://www.bestnaturalfoods.com/newsletter/vitamin-a-too-much.html

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Vitamin+A

<http://www.anyvitamins.com/vitamin-a-info.htm#Toxicity%20and%20symptoms%20of%20high%20intake>

http://www.biblelife.org/vitamintoxicity.htm

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/health/2008/07/can-you-overdos.html

http://k9joy.com/dogarticles/vitaminA.pdf

<http://www.vitabase.com/doctor/questions/vitamin-b12-overdose-579.aspx?aid=428>

However, I've also found a site saying that it also contains enough
cadmium that the Arctic explorers who died from eating too much polar
bear liver had cadmium poisoning instead:

http://www.westonaprice.org/healthissues/supplements.html

Robert


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: NIGHT TIME FOOT AND TOE CRAMPING
    ... cramps by taking extra calcium, ... Potassium is not easily available in pill form in high enough ... Instead, try using salt substitutes. ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: NIGHT TIME FOOT AND TOE CRAMPING
    ... Several people have found relief from night cramps ... by taking extra calcium, magnesium and potassium. ... Potassium is not easily available in pill form in high enough ... Instead, try using salt substitutes. ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: NIGHT TIME FOOT AND TOE CRAMPING
    ... cramps by taking extra calcium, ... Potassium is not easily available in pill form in high enough ... Instead, try using salt substitutes. ... Google search on ("night cramps" diabetes) should pick up those ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: leg cramps when sleeping
    ... extra calcium, magnesium and/or potassium. ... For me it's the magnesium that seems to be the most important, ... The amount of potassium you can get in Over-The-Counter pill form ... others find that they are hard to tell from regular salt. ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: NIGHT TIME FOOT AND TOE CRAMPING
    ... cramps by taking extra calcium, ... Potassium is not easily available in pill form in high enough ... have to be careful about Vitamin A and Vitamin D. ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)