One of the things that I seemed to have inherited from my mom was a tendency to have bad foot and leg cramps in the middle of the night. For several years, I found myself regularly waking up with my foot and leg muscles clenched, making it impossible to find any comfort. If I was lucky, I would wake up soon enough to feel the beginning of the cramp start in my toes, thus enabling me to work on it before it became a full-fledged rock-solid, muscle-burning cramp that took over the whole extremity. However, in the past few years, my night leg cramps have seemed to come around less often and they’re less severe.
      So what are these muscle cramps? How can you limit them? And what do you do if you have a leg cramp?
     “A muscle cramp is a sudden, uncontrolled contraction of a muscle,” wrote Dr. Jonathan Cluett on About.com. “Leg cramps occur when the muscle suddenly and forcefully contracts.” These cramps may last several minutes until the contraction subsides. According to Cluett, leg cramps can be caused by muscle fatigue, heavy exercising, dehydration, high weight, electrolyte imbalances, and medications. The Mayo Clinic staff also noted that night leg cramps, while often harmless, may be associated with Addison’s disease, alcoholism, blood pressure medications, cirrhosis, diarrhea, diuretics, flatfeet, gastric bypass surgery, hypothyroidism, chronic kidney failure, oral contraceptives, Parkinson’s disease, second trimester pregnancy, and peripheral artery disease. The Mayo Clinic staff reported that the risk of night leg cramps increases with age. In addition, pregnant women may be more likely to experience night cramps.
    Diet can make a difference in how often you experience night-time leg cramps. For instance, one change that I made about 10 years ago was to stop primarily drinking diet sodas and opting instead for water. Turns out that in a recent Houston Chronicle column, “The You Docs,” Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen encourage people to drink between six to eight glasses of fluid a day, although they don’t specify what kind of fluids one should drink. By doing a quick Google search, I found a 2008 blog by Jennifer Heisler, R.N., on about.com that notes, “According to some recent studies, calcium is the common denominator between leg cramps, cola drinks, bone loss and the subsequent need for surgery after a brittle bone breaks.” Heisler reports that leg cramps is one of the first signs that you’re not getting enough calcium. Heisler as well as Oz and Roizen recommend getting more calcium from food, drinks and supplements. Cluett recommends drinking at least three full glasses of water daily, including one right before bedtime. He also recommends drinking plenty of fluid before, during and after exercising.
     Roizen and Oz also recommend eating a variety of fruits and vegetables daily to also get key minerals such as potassium and magnesium. The National Institutes of Health report that green vegetables such as spinach are good sources of magnesium, as are some legumes, nuts and seeds, and whole, unrefined grains. Tap water also can be a source of magnesium, but the amount can vary according the water supply. MedlinePlus (a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health) notes that good sources of potassium include red meat, chicken, fish, soy products, veggie burgers, broccoli, peas, lima beans, tomatoes, potatoes (especially the skins), sweet potatoes, winter squashes, citrus fruits, cantaloupe, bananas, kiwi, prunes, apricots, milk, yogurt, and nuts.