Early yesterday morning I awoke with a start. My right calf knotted into a hardened mass of pain. It took me a while to be able to straighten my leg and get out of bed. I walked like an old man, oh yeah, I am an old man!
I’ve endured a long history with leg cramps and try as I may with various antidotes, I never found the silver bullet for me. Last summer I read an article written by Wil Dubois over at DiabetesMine about this topic. He described a couple of “silver bullet” solutions for muscle cramping.
But what if, despite your ounce of prevention, you still get a pound of cramps? Stretch, rub, and swear—then reach for the magic. I’ve found two silver bullets that can stop an ongoing cramp attack in its tracks.
The first is a calcium pill, but make sure it’s the liquid gel cap type. This quickly beefs up one of the key “electrolytes,” that when deficient, can trigger a cramp. Using a liquid cap, rather than a solid pill, gets the calcium into your system quicker. Within minutes, these magic pills can make a cramp attack disappear. A related option is one of those little packs of magnesium powder that you mix into some water and chug (added benefit: rehydration).
I didn’t pick up a calcium supplement until later in the day so I was unable to test Wil’s claim of stopping the cramp in its tracks. I took a dose before bed last night and didn’t have any cramps last night.
With my recent focus on heart health, I’ve been monitoring my blood pressure when I get up in the morning. I take blood pressure medicine and my blood pressure usually stays around 122/82 or less. I sometimes elevate to 130/90.
This morning however, my measurement was 159/103! I’ve never seen that high a level before. I quickly tried to account for this. I have missed my daily walk for the last few days and I’ve also haven’t meditated for a couple of days. But then I remembered taking the calcium supplement last evening before bed.
I did a quick Google search and found plenty of references to calcium supplements and hypertension. Like with most things with diabetes, I guess there’s always a downside to any helpful treatment.
Anyone else find calcium supplementation boosts their blood pressure to the stratosphere?