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A cramp is an involuntary and uncontrolled muscle contraction, most often occurring in the calves as a normal response to physical overexertion or exertion. But if convulsive attacks become quite frequent, this may be evidence of the development of a disease in the human body. Such spasms can be observed in various parts of the body, and people of any age are prone to convulsions. But still more often muscle spasms "worry" the elderly. So how do you get rid of a leg cramp?
What do cramps say?
Physiologically, a cramp isinvoluntary contraction of one or a group of muscles, accompanied by bouts of sharp pain. Muscle spasms come in many forms:
- Some appear as stereotypical rapid movements - these are clonic convulsions caused by short-term contraction and subsequent relaxation of a small group of muscles, for example, a nervous tic of the upper or lower eyelid.
- There are also tonic cramps, which most often occur in the calf - the muscles seem to harden for a while, causing unbearable pain. Such spasms are local in nature.
- The most severe and dangerous are convulsions that occur in almost all muscles of the human body and are accompanied by loss of consciousness - these are generalized spasms that are the result of fairly severe systemic diseases (for example: epilepsy or parathyroid lesions) and require immediate treatment under conditions hospital (this kind of muscle spasms often occur in young children during a sharp increase in body temperature - in pediatrics there is even such a diagnosis: “convulsive febrile syndrome”).
Reasons for appearance
The causes of leg cramps are often associated with a person's lifestyle - both athletes (due to constant physical overload) and people leading a sedentary lifestyle (impaired blood circulation caused by a long period of immobility causes lack of oxygen in muscles and tissues and, accordingly, their excessivevoltage). In addition, intense sports, especially after a significant break, or physical labor that requires the tension of all muscle groups (work in the summer cottage, or general cleaning of the apartment …) can provoke the appearance of short-term, but quite painful cramps in the legs.
Provoking factors
Doctors believe that a variety of causes that cause seizures can be both fairly harmless and require serious intervention, that is, therapy:
- Deficiency of trace elements, minerals or vitamins in the human body, especially calcium, magnesium and vitamin D, causes excitability of muscle and nerve fibers, provoking convulsive conditions.
- Pregnancy in women often provokes varicose veins of the extremities, and this disease manifests itself in the form of pain, heaviness in the legs and night cramps.
- The intake of certain drugs, which have a pronounced diuretic effect, leads to an imbalance of potassium and calcium in the body - and this is one of the causes of muscle cramps. In addition, taking oral contraceptives containing synthetic hormones can cause seizures, as this phenomenon is a side effect of the influence of such drugs on the human body.
- The course of some somatic diseases - obesity, transverse flatfoot, cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes mellitus, anemia, decreased immunity and epilepsy - is often accompanied by convulsive spasms. Also, regular and painful muscle spasms are a symptom of varicose veins, whichit is also a hereditary disease.
- At risk are people whose type of activity is associated with prolonged static loads on their legs; convulsions are prone to women who prefer to wear high-heeled shoes and rather tight, tight-fitting clothes; as well as patients suffering from disorders of the gastrointestinal tract (in particular, constipation).
Additional factors that can cause sudden muscle spasm can be stressful conditions, sudden changes in temperature, wind and swimming in cold water. By the way, Eastern medicine considers the lack of vital energy to be the cause of seizures.
Cramps in the legs often go away after a good rest, but this is the danger of the pathology - often patients "write off" the pain for fatigue and do not rush to the doctors - and thus you can miss the beginning of the development of a serious pathology.
Symptoms of pathology
The most painful type of muscle spasm is considered to be a calf cramp - it always begins suddenly (sometimes a muscle squeezing sensation can become a harbinger of such a condition) and is accompanied by a sharp, unbearable pain and tension of the entire leg. Is it possible to remove a cramp in the calf, how to do it? If a person, before a convulsive spasm, feels heaviness in the leg, then this leg should immediately be relaxed as much as possible.
Night cramps
Especially often this condition occurs at night and causes some discomfort. How to get rid of leg cramps at night? The main ruleeliminate cramps at night - perform all actions, ignoring the pain. The first thing to do is to straighten the limb as much as possible while lying on the bed. Sometimes, from this action, the cramp disappears as suddenly as it began. If it is impossible to straighten the leg, it is necessary to press as hard as possible on it with your hand, or with the other leg, while simultaneously massaging and patting the tense muscle. At the same time, you should also breathe definitely: the deepest breath alternates with a sharp exhalation.
Seizures in the elderly
How to get rid of leg cramps in the elderly, for whom many of the ways to help cope with the problem are simply not available? As a rule, people of advanced age already know certain activities and immediately, as soon as the pain pierces the leg, they perform them: move their toes; stroking and rubbing the damaged muscle; stand on a cold surface and may even prick a spasmodic muscle with a needle or pin (which they almost always carry).
Of course, in older people, the appearance of a significant number of pathological conditions is associated with natural physiological processes occurring in the body, according to age. If convulsions in the elderly recur quite often and last more than a week, this is a reason to see a doctor. There are medications that can help not only reduce the frequency of seizures, but also cope with the disease that causes muscle spasms.
Of course, you can not use any drugs on your own,based on the fact that the same helped a neighbor or friend - the doctor should prescribe medication, individually for each patient, and only after examination and identification of the reasons why leg cramps began to bother the patient more and more often.
How to deal with pain quickly?
So, my legs cramped, how to remove the pain urgently? There are some simple, easy to use and quite effective tips:
- The leg needs to be relaxed as much as possible.
- Cramp toes - how to remove? Pull the toe of the foot towards you, relax and strain again, much stronger.
- You can stand with both (bare) feet on a hard, preferably cold surface - a sharp temperature drop will relax tense muscles.
- A spasmodic muscle can be pinched (quite sensitively) or pricked with a sharp tip of a pin.
- After the spasm is relieved, it is necessary to lie down - while the legs should be above the head (that is, slightly raised - you can put a pillow under them) - this ensures the outflow of blood and reduces the risk of a spasm recurrence.
These tips, performed in a timely manner, despite the acute pain in the legs, answer the question: how to quickly remove a cramp in the leg. But if spasms become regular and the above methods do not help, you should consult a doctor. It may be necessary not only to cope with convulsions, but also to look for the causes that cause them.
Treatment methods
The answer to the question of how to removea cramp in the leg, will be given by a general practitioner after a thorough examination of the patient and establishing the cause of the pathology. Only drug therapy (or other treatments) for the underlying disease will help reduce the frequency of spasms. But there are also drugs that can relieve pain during a cramp - they can only be prescribed by the attending physician. Patient alone can:
- adjust diet;
- choose comfortable shoes for yourself;
- do self-massage of the feet, alternating it with contrast baths;
- avoid excessive exercise, especially on the lower limbs.
Folk treatments
And a few more words about how to remove leg cramps at home: you need to constantly perform certain exercises that help reduce the frequency of muscle spasms. In addition, traditional medicine has many recipes for getting rid of leg cramps: all of them are based on the use of compresses and ointments, made independently from decoctions of medicinal herbs, vegetable and fruit juices.
Doctors' recommendations
Often, leg cramps are not an independent pathology, but rather a complex problem, the causes of which are pathological changes in the body. The only right decision is to turn to specialist doctors who will accurately determine the cause and prescribe the appropriate therapy. Self-treatment in this situation can turn out to be at least a waste of time and not bring the desired relief.
Prevention
There is an exercise that can help prevent leg cramps: lying on your back, stretch your arms and legs. In this case, the heels should be apart, and the toes should touch each other. Now you need to stretch your arms and legs in the way that is as strong as possible - you should strain your muscles on a deep breath, and relax on a slow exhale. Repeating this exercise 5-7 times and doing it daily (up to 2-3 times a day) helps to avoid unpleasant and rather painful muscle cramps.
