Drawing muscle and curling my toe’s upward in a type of spasm.
I sometimes get a leg cramp that goes up and down the outside front of my lower leg and into my foot that attempts to twist and curl my foot up kind of sideways, sort of leading with the second to last and little toes. The muscles and tendon get so tight that I think they are going to rip.
While sometimes I can release it by standing and walking on it for a few minutes it usually comes back when I try to go back to sleep, or worse, I get to sleep and it comes back and wakes me up, again.
I have heard of Magnesium for this problem as a nutritional remedy, but it didn’t work for me, in fact it seemed to make the problem worse. So in my thinking it must be something else.
It could be overwork, straining the muscle, or a lack of circulation.
For me it is an overwork situation too, I’m sure. I am on my feet for long periods, mopping, sweeping, and washing tables, so when I’ve had several days off and then go back to work, the first day or two seems to be the days I have the problem. It’s especially troublesome if I’ve spent a lot of my time off, sitting at the computer writing, or just sitting in general. I think I may be restricting the circulation to my lower legs and feet. And since I’ve gotten older it’s not as easy to protect the nerves in my tailbone area while I sit, or maybe I just sit longer. I’m sure there’s more than one cause at play here.
NSAIDS don’t work!
At any rate I didn’t want to use Motrin, or Alieve, or Tylenol, or even Aspirin. I don’t think any of those things are good for my system, even if they would work. I think it would be like hiding the underlying cause for a little while, instead of actually doing anything about it, and possibly causing more trouble in the long run, because those NSAIDS inhibit regenerative processes by alleviating one of its triggers, inflammation.
What do you crave?
I further think that inflammation is a call for nutrients, and it’s our job to figure out what they are, and one way to do that is to pay attention to what we crave even if we think it’s bad for us to crave it like meats, or chocolate, or bacon, or milk. Or maybe it’s something we’ve never tried before like kale, or turnip or something exotic that we just happen to see, or think about. Avocado just came to mind, yum. It’s high in good fats, magnesium and potassium.
What you crave may be what you are missing.
All foods have a nutrient profile with one or two nutrients being really high in that food. Meats are high in protein and B vitamins, and if cooked with the bone in, minerals and calcium are high with the added benefit of having the fat to absorb those minerals better. Bones are the best most complete source of calcium, phosphorus, collagen and other nutrients for so many life processes. Green leafy vegetable on the other hand are high in Magnesium. So paying attention to the types of food you crave makes a lot of sense. By the way craving Ice Cream and Donuts may signal a fat craving if you aren’t getting enough in your diet.
I have been craving milk and ice cream.
I finally discovered that it was calcium that was missing. I don’t have an allergy to milk but it does cause some issues with breathing for me. So I made a calcium drink from egg shells, which contain the most digestible form of calcium for humans, Calcium Carbonate. I retained the white membrane inside the shells because it is the same tissue that is used for making connective tissue like hair, tendons, and cartilage. I used apple cider vinegar to dissolve the powdered egg shell, see the recipe below. It takes about an hour or two to dissolve the powder and it really doesn’t all dissolve but enough does for digestion, you can add water and let the larger particles settle a bit if the graininess bothers you, but you’ll reduce the calcium some. Just drink it down or add it to your smoothie. The acid in your stomach will finish dissolving the egg shell. It really works for the leg cramps that are not alleviated by Magnesium alone. Not to mention they are free because you normally just throw egg shells away as waste.
How to use egg shells as a calcium supplement.
I save my shells by washing out the extra egg white clinging to the inside of the shell, and letting it dry on a paper towel or paper plate, then I store them in a large plastic bag until I have enough to crush into smaller pieces.
I drop the saved shells into boiling water for about five minutes then take them out with a slotted spoon and let them sit like over-turned bowels until thoroughly dry. I forgot to mention this in my little podcast thing.
I put the boiled, dried shells into a glass jar and crush them down into smaller pieces and save them ‘til I have enough to run through the coffee grinder. You can use them at this point but it might take a couple hours to dissolve the egg shell in vinegar.
I further crush them with a mortar and pestle to make a finer powder so they dissolve quickly; about an hour or so.
I save the powdered shells in a small jelly jar to use when I need them.
I will sometimes just moisten my finger and get some of the powdered egg shell and put it in my mouth a few times in the middle of the night if I’m awakened by a leg cramp. It’s amazing how quick it works. Like it’s absorbed by the membranes in your mouth before it gets to your stomach. I think your body knows that the nutrients it needs are coming so it stops having its little temper tantrum. Soon, you can comfortably go back to sleep. If they are really bad and you want to be sure they stay gone, make this drink.
1/8 th teaspoon of powderd egg shell
1 to 2 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
1 small juice glass
Later, enough water to finish filling the glass
Combine the egg shell calcium with the vinegar, it should start foaming in a minute or so, if you put it near your ear you can hear the active foaming.
After the foaming stops, add enough water to fill the rest of the glass.
You can add little honey or a little fruit juice to make it more palatable.
Eat a piece of buttered (real butter, not margarine) toast with it to help your body absorb the minerals, or you can take a teaspoon of good fresh olive oil, or eat a piece of avocado. Some kind of good fat will help you absorb the mineral into your system.
Good to know…
I found the following YouTube video while I was verifying some of my data. The guy talks kind of fast but he has good show notes for clarification. Through this video and other websites I have discovered that I may have been experiencing Tetany, a condition characterized by low calcium or at least the calcium ions, even if my blood tests didn’t show a low calcium level in my blood. As I read through other articles on Tetany I discovered that I do likely get bouts of Tetany, even the tingling and wheezing I experience in other parts of my body are some of its symptoms.
I have a work situation that exposes me to high heat and humidity, and strenuous prolonged activity that overtaxes my muscles and causes profuse sweating. It is a good possibility that Tetany is the result. I will be checking with my doctor to confirm.
YouTube:
Tetany | Causes | Signs | Treatment, Jul 24, 2018
My comment on that subject:
“In addition to the vomiting a person might be in a work situation where profuse sweating does occur, as in working in a kitchen, or dish cleaning room where a lot of steam is produced through various machines and boilers. Prolonged sweating in hot and/or humid conditions will also deplete needed minerals through the skin, and cause muscle cramps and breathing issues. So, I have just learned that it is called Tetany. I have been treating my muscle cramps with egg shell calcium that I make myself dissolved in a small amount of apple cider vinegar, then I add water sometimes a bit of honey for a palatable drink that I have with a slice of buttered toast for better absorption. Fats improve the absorption of minerals.” (Added in this text) …and I am sure that the honey, or rather, the glucose portion of honey, has an effect too.
Other Notes:
Okay, I had to look up the difference between Tetany and Tetanus (the infection), So I found out that tetany is one of the symptoms of tetanus, the infection causes a lack of inhibition to the neurons that supply muscles, “tetanic contractions” are a broad range of muscle contractions; physiologic tetanus. It seems to happen all over the body not just in localized areas like I have been writing about in this article.
Nutrient Broth, Bone Broth
https://www.westonaprice.org/podcast/
https://www.westonaprice.org/podcast/dont-throw-away-bones/
This next link is a long scientific article on the effects of NSADS but it is very thorough, it contains lots of images and charts that help make the information more understandable. The abstract at the top of the page is, in itself, very informative.
“The Acceleration of Articular Cartilage Degeneration in Osteoarthritis by Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs”, By Ross A. Hauser, MD, Journal of Prolotherapy. 2010;(2)1:305-322
A Publication of Regenerative Medicine Techniques
Saint Bridgid’s Cross for Saint Bridgid’s Day, the Start of Imbolic season, or in America, Groundhog Day
Equisetum, but for my purpose here the E. hyemale, or rough horsetail is the one I am using. It has the hollow stem of the rushes and is referred to as Horsetail Rush, 
t it would.