I have significant neuropathy and that aggravates my night-time severe leg cramps. Drink water all day and also drink coconut water to hydrate. Added salt back into my diet and started taking magnesium. Cramps have been reduced but occasionally hit me during the night.

statins gave me leg cramps

Browsing through all the responses here and they can almost entirely be boiled down to one of two related issues: hydration and electrolytes. Solid place to start for sure.

My left hamstring is VERY quick to cramp, particularly when it is shortened (imagine stretching your quad by lifting your heal behind your leg and pulling up on the ankle)

I've been working with a Certified Athletic Training (the people you see run out onto a sports field when a player gets injured) and her conclusion is a significant muscle imbalance between my two hamstrings.

Context: my left hamstring was injured in a fall years ago. As a result it isn't near as strong as the right, which makes it work harder to try and keep up. This causes perpetual tightness, which magnifies the weakness (tight is weak, loose is strong, when it comes to muscles).

So, since it lives in this state, all the time, it is very very quick to cramp. So, the cure, she says, is to try and fix the imbalance and strengthen the weak hamstring. That is an ongoing process, and has been for a long time. It doesn't seem to respond very well.

All that to say, if you always cramp in the same muscle, get a pro to help loosen it out and start working on making it stronger. It'll take time, I'm told.

Update

Earlier I'd posted a home-brew mineralized hydration drink that, among other things, mostly relieved the occasional cramps I'd get.

But not entirely. In fact, when I took up bicycling again, recently, they came back with a vengeance.

Asked an AI about it. The AI suggested Calcium deficiency might be the culprit.

I downed a couple of my wife's TUMS and a couple more at bedtime, and ordered some NOW brand Calcium Citrate from Amazon.

Adding that to my hydration water it's now:

• Sea salt: 3g/liter (±1/2 tsp)
  
• Magnesium Chloride: 2-3g/liter
  
• Potassium Citrate: 3g/liter (±1/2 tsp)
  
• Calcium Citrate: 2g/liter (±7/8 tsp)
  
• Lemon juice: 2 tsp/liter
  
• Honey or sugar - 1 tsp or 15g (±1 tbsp) per liter, respectively

Cramps are now entirely gone, even the persistent intermittent foot cramps that have plagued me for years. I can now safely curl my toes w/o fearing my feet will cramp up. Yay! \o/

The AI suggests my home-brew mineralized hydration drink is now better than any of the commercial products because it contains all they do, plus calcium, which they leave out, and higher potassium, plus none of the mystery additives they contain.

I'm glad that worked out for you

But please do not rely on a LLM "AI"* for medical advice. (*Not actual artificial intelligence, it's just a marketing buzzword.)

LLMs are highly prone to hallucinate (read: make shit up), and are also biased towards agreeing with/confirming your existing ideas even if those are wrong.

So they're fun to mess around with for casual stuff, but should not be trusted for important things like medical/legal advice for which you would normally consult a trained and experienced professional human being.

I used to get them when at night, laying on the couch watching TV, I'd stretch a bit and the calf's or ankle's would occasionally seize up with incredible pain.

I went back to the gym three months ago after a layoff from covid and my in-home work outs petered out and even then I never worked the legs.

Now I go every other day alternating upper and legs plus always doing a little cardio and the end and starting out with a vigorous core workout. I do hit the workout pretty hard each day.

I also take a bottle of water with a Electrolyte mix plus a little pink salt and my creatine load 5g (for during the workout).

I can't remember the last time I had any late night cramps since starting back up.

I started taking a Magnesium tablet and have had zero cramps since.

Co-worker pointed me to Drip Drop. Hydration powder, mix in water. Taste could be better but it stopped my twitchy calf muscle before I could finish it.

Get some basic blood work and have your electrolytes checked then see your physician.

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur:
Co-worker pointed me to Drip Drop. Hydration powder, mix in water. Taste could be better but it stopped my twitchy calf muscle before I could finish it.

That's exactly what occurs when I drink CALM, a magnesium/Calcium supplement. Costco carries it.

Also, I was told if you ate celery, you won't get cramps. That worked for me as well, however, the CALM brings immedite relief for when you forget the celery:-) As I understand it, the Magnesium Glycinate is better than magnesium citrate like calm has. So if buying tablets, I'd go with that.

Eating bananas tends to work much better than taking potassium. Other ingredients in bananas make the potassium more bio-available through a synergistic effect. Also a high salt intake appears to increase muscle cramps.

Late to the party and I'm glad to hear you electrolyte "cocktail" has helped.

I've found that low salt V8 (which is full of potassium rather than sodium) wokrs very effectively for me for both exercise related (jujitsu) and night time leg cramps. I've found Sam's carries it in cases, WM has it in 6 packs. Keep one in my gym bag and always have at least one chilled in the fridge. I loath bananas so this was a good solution for me.

Sounds like someone needs to learn how rub one out in 10 minutes

Have you tried pickle brine?

When I overdo it in the heat it does wonders to prevent night cramps.

Homemade seems best, but store bought seems to work good, just harder to stomach.