Health Tips-

[Mr Lee]

I had gone to many doctors over the years and never seemed to get rid of the cramps that I got in my legs and especially in my calves at night, so they wanted to do an invasive test and I refused. Then one day a friend told me to try Potassium Chloride, so I bought some and started using it and the cramps were gone, so I thought I would pass that along to others and maybe others have some health tips that they could add. As always a person should check with their own doctor before taking any over the counter items, and they do make prescription potassium which is called Potassium CL 20MEQ ER Tablets that would be better but is much more expensive here in the US, I am not sure about in the Philippines. Anyone else have some tips that they came across that might help others?

[sjp52]

There called muscle spasms Just do some stretches. On some stairs have your toes on the edge of a stair and lower your heel until you feel it and then push a little more and hold. Do that once in a while and that should eliminate the leg spasm. Thats funny that you mentioned it, I just had one last night OUCH

Edited July 20, 2011 by sjp52

[Mr Lee]

There called muscle spasms Just do some stretches. On some stairs have your toes on the edge of a stair and lower your heel until you feel it and then push a little more and hold. Do that once in a while and that should eliminate the leg spasm. Thats funny that you mentioned it, I just had one last night OUCH

Thanks for the tip, but I had tried everything including those stretches, just about every type of doctor, a chiropractor and a physical therapist and nothing worked for me until the potassium chloride, and I was taking other forums of potassium at the time and they did not work, so while potassium chloride might not work for everyone, I thought if it might help even one member, then it would be worth mentioning because the pain of a locked muscle in the calves was brutal. I am happy the stretching works for you. :541:

[softail]

I was always told to eat bananas, was supposed to be something in them to help leg cramps.Doug

[Old55]

I was always told to eat bananas, was supposed to be something in them to help leg cramps.Doug

I agree Doug, one banana contains ~450 mg of potassium. Potassium is known to help cramping and eating one or two bananas a day seems to give me some relief from leg cramps, I have sciatica it can cause cramps.

[Inspector]

Probably from some medication you are on...drink a LOT of fluids and that will take care of 95% of all cramping.

[sjp52]

did you do a lot of walking lately on hard ground

[Mr Lee]

did you do a lot of walking lately on hard ground

With me it was a lack of potassium because I even tried all types of shoes, slippers and have nice soft padded Hushpuppy shoes and still get the cramps when I do not take the potassium for a few days, but I thank you for trying different ideas. :541:Anyway enough about me since it is not me who is important, IMO it is the members of the forum, so does anyone else have any health tips they would like to share that might help others?

[Candyman]

I drink lots of fluids, mainly in the form of coffee, and I suffer from very severe cramps, not only in the legs but in the chest and around the kidney areas. have done for years. Sometimes I get them in the shoulders as well, especially if I am sitting on the loo ! Years ago, I used to take Quinine Bi Sulfate for them when you could buy them over the counter, but now you have to have a script for it, and my Doctor will not prescribe it because of other medication I am on for a host of other things, like diabetes, high blood pressure, Rhuematoid and Osteo Arthritis and unstable angina ! So he reckons that taking potassium would conflict with these medications.One thing I have found that does help a bit, (but not all the time), and mainly in summer times, is to drink plenty of tonic Water, (called Indian tonic water in some parts of the world). To be effective, you need to drink about 2 litres of that per day, every day ! It has a small amount of Quinine in it ! When I was in the Philippines, a Pharmacist put me onto Ibibrufin which I took two pills a day, and they worked, but my normal doctor hit the roof when I told him, when I returned home. I am still not real sure why, unless it may have upset some of the heart meds I was on ?

[Mr Lee]

I drink lots of fluids, mainly in the form of coffee, and I suffer from very severe cramps, not only in the legs but in the chest and around the kidney areas. have done for years. Sometimes I get them in the shoulders as well, especially if I am sitting on the loo ! Years ago, I used to take Quinine Bi Sulfate for them when you could buy them over the counter, but now you have to have a script for it, and my Doctor will not prescribe it because of other medication I am on for a host of other things, like diabetes, high blood pressure, Rhuematoid and Osteo Arthritis and unstable angina ! So he reckons that taking potassium would conflict with these medications.One thing I have found that does help a bit, (but not all the time), and mainly in summer times, is to drink plenty of tonic Water, (called Indian tonic water in some parts of the world). To be effective, you need to drink about 2 litres of that per day, every day ! It has a small amount of Quinine in it ! When I was in the Philippines, a Pharmacist put me onto Ibibrufin which I took two pills a day, and they worked, but my normal doctor hit the roof when I told him, when I returned home. I am still not real sure why, unless it may have upset some of the heart meds I was on ?

Sorry to hear about your pain, I can sympathize with you because I have been dealing with much of the same most of my later years. There is an online drug interaction checker HERE that I use for all my meds and vitamins. Also I am not able to get Quinine here in the US, so I ordered some online at AllDayChemists and had it shipped to me but I found that while it helped some, it did not cut out my problem. You might wish to do a drug interaction checker and add in all your drugs and also then add in potassium and see if it will conflict with anything you take. I suspect your doctor was upset with the ibuprofen because all NSAID's are said to possibly cause heart problems but I take them anyway and I would rather die at an earlier age than suffer with pains all over my body. Another medicine for pain in the body which is prescription is Gabapentin which I have been told is the predecessor to Lyrica which was the one really helped me but Lyrica made me so short tempered, that it was stop it or get a divorce, so I tried the Gabapentin and then found a NSAID called Mobic which works pretty good, so that is what I take now for the pains, but again it is probably no good for a person with a heart condition, so best to check with a doctor and it would require a prescription anyway and takes about five days to start working, but once it kicked in, I felt about 80% better most days. Good luck and I hope you find something that helps you.