Muscle Cramp Remedies

It took me 6 years to track down the cause of my nighttime charley-horses and foot cramps. I finally landed on a site regarding migraines and condensed tannins which was an "aha" moment for me. I had been taking calcium, magnesium, and potassium for years with modest improvement. If I didn't take the trio, the cramping did get worse. Once I cut condensed tannins out of my diet, I got complete relief.

Condensed tannins make give fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, and grains their color. The darker the color, the more of a problem they are for me. Not surprisingly, I no longer drink red wine--full of tannins. I stopped drinking coffee, teas (decaf still has tannins); anything aged on wood (trees are full of tannins) which means cinnamon, smoked meats, ACV, balsamic vinegar, white wines aged on wood (pinot grigio is a white wine reliably not aged on wood--it is my wine of choice along with vinho verde); very dark berries and their juices (ex: cherries, blueberries); whole grains with the hull attached; dark beans (ex: kidney beans, black beans). This is not a full food list of condensed tannins in foods; it's just a list of those things that guarantee leg and foot cramps for me. I can drink black or green tea by adding cream, the protein in the cream binds with the tannins--but one cup a day is all I dare drink.

It has meant giving up some favorite foods and beverages but the sacrifice has been worth it. As long as I take the minerals and avoid condensed tannins, no leg cramps.

Pickle juice is miraculous for leg, foot, or hand cramps

Pickle juice works within seconds whenever I have muscle cramps in my legs, feet, or hands. I couldn't believe it when one of my friends recommended it but it has never failed to work.

Dear Donna, I use 1 tsp of yellow mustard to get rid of cramps anywhere on the body. It works like a charm I just put it in my mouth drink a little water and let it go down. You don't even feel the pain from the cramp on your muscle afterwards. Peace, Mary

I am 55 and battle fibromyalgia. One of the problems is muscle cramps, mostly in legs and feet, that approximate the hard, long cramps common in the 9th month of pregnancy. I can cramp up at any time depending upon the position I get myself into, but it is common for me to get bad leg cramps maybe every 2-3 months. Those keep me up at night loading on Vit C, Magnesium and Potassium, slapping hot towels on one leg then the other as I hop around crying in pain.

Last week it happened again, but because ACV was on my countertop (due to this site) I swilled down 2 TBSP straight (when you are in that kind of pain you don't care what it tastes like) then chased with maybe 6 oz water. WITHIN 2 MINUTES THE CRAMP WAS GONE AND DID NOT RETURN! This is amazing. On nights when this happens I generally attempt to sleep on the couch so I don't wake my husband because IF I get any sleep at all it is in between spasms that wake me up violently.

I am grateful for this site. Thank you!

You won't see common sense cures made known by doctors because they go by what the pharmacies tell them and they will never support a cure that can't be patented so they can make more money.

Hi Mama to Many,

I read that if you rub Vicks Vapor Rub _ for your chest cold_ on the area where you get the cramp at bedtime you do not get a cramp.. I tried it for my cramps and after a week, I stopped and the cramps never came back.

God Bless

Gary

I have had leg cramps for years and I tried all sorts of things. I did magnesium and potassium plus some product from Standard Process. None of them worked, my cramps were so severe they would wake me up at night crying from the intensity! Then I read that MAGNESIUM GLYCINATE is the magnesium to take (magnesium citrate does nothing for leg cramps, I know I tried it). I ordered it from Luma Nutrition since I respect the quality of their products. The next time I had a leg cramp it was intense for a second or two and then it disappeared completely on its own without me having to get up and walk around. It happened one other time but since then I have been sleeping peacefully with no cramps or even a hint of cramps.

Calcium for Nighttime Leg Cramps

My husband is on his feet a lot at work and is prone to leg cramps at night.

It used to be that if he made sure to have a banana in the evening, he wouldn't get leg cramps.

However, since he started on a plant based diet last summer, we know that his potassium level is actually a little high. (Probably from so many bananas and lentils.) The doctor isn't concerned about the level, but I don't think potassium deficiency is his problem.

I started giving him magnesium before bed. This reduced the cramps at night but did not eliminate them.

Ahah! Suddenly the pieces fit. Plant based diet. No dairy. He is lacking calcium. He started taking a couple of Tums before bed. Voila! Leg cramps stopped.

I ordered some NOW Calcium citrate since Tums is just Calcium carbonate and not the best form of calcium, as far as I understand. The NOW Calcium also has magnesium, D, zinc and manganese. He took them last night and they worked but they are pretty big pills to swallow....

~Mama to Many~

Tried your Magnesium and Chloride protocol and it has worked first time. I have been in so much discomfort for months, now I am pain free from leg cramps. Bless you.

My father had really bad leg cramps. These cramps looked like baseballs on his thigh and calves. He would go down on his knees in pure agony. My grandmaw always gave him about 1/4 cup of ACV which he drank immediately. Within 20-30 seconds the cramps dissapated.

Nika from Holland,

Might I suggest a glass of water with Magnesium Chloride liquid (a very few drops ) might help with the muscle cramps a lot. I can speak from personal experience with this recommendation. Works for me every time and quickly too. Buy a reputable brand - ask around!

Apart from the muscle cramps, Magnesium helps with so many other tasks in the body and most people are short of it these days. Not very expensive to buy either.

The taste is not too bad if you only put a few drops in a medium-sized glass of water. otherwise it might be a bit off-putting!

You have my permission to claim the credit if it works!

Cheers from Down Under

I just started taking apple cider vinegar. I had muscle cramps before that and now I don't. It started right away.

For leg cramps - acupressure on the opposite leg, at the same spot as cramp is in affected leg. Always works for me. eg. I will have a cramp in the right calf but no pain in that spot on the unaffected (left) side; but when I find the exact spot, deep, on the left side, it will be very painful to rub there. Left sided pain subsides when rubbed in a minute or two and then the cramp in the right leg subsides shortly thereafter.

My son woke up the other morning doubled over with severe abdominal pain. He said it reminded him of the pain he had a few years ago that was a suspected appendicitis. We had treated that successfully with charcoal so I immediately began to fix him a charcoal poultice. The pain was rather high, though, just under his ribcage. It seemed more the location of the gall bladder....

Meanwhile, he mentioned having had a leg cramp in the night. Then we recalled that he had been helping someone install some panels on a ceiling and had worked for several hours with his arms in the air a good bit of the time. It made us suspect that he was actually dealing with a muscle cramp. I put 2 teaspoons of Natural Calm (magnesium supplement) into a mug with water. He drank it and was 85% better in less than 5 minutes! I still went ahead and used a charcoal poultice over his abdomen for a while. An hour later he was 100% and off to work.

Magnesium would not normally be my first thought for abdominal pain (unless perhaps the pain was caused by constipation or menstrual cramps.) And I have never heard of a cramp in the location he was experiencing pain, but when we put together all the information, and the fact that magnesium worked, it seems that this pain was indeed a muscle cramp.

~Mama to Many~

Acupressure by pressing the bone between your nostrils with your index fingers works to get rid of my leg cramps. I am 27 years old and had never suffered from this problem until about 2 weeks ago when I started a course of antibiotics to get rid of helicobacter pylori. Tried everything I could think of but nothing worked. Someone suggested I press the bone situated between the nostrils with my forefinger and it instantly went away. It's amazing!!!

The antibiotics they gave me for H. Pylori made me ill. I took mastic gum for two weeks every morning, when tested and it was gone.

Dill pickle juice cured my severe leg mucle spasms following knee replacement surgury. I found one site that said the pickle juice gives us acitic acid. Whatever it does, it worked almost instantaneously. I would like to find another way to stop the spasms, there is not a lot to do with bottles of pickle without the juice. Eating just the pickle does not give the same relief.

Just drank 4 tblsp of Claussen pickle juice 3 mins. ago...SEVERE ANKLE PAIN (right side), pain is abating as I write this!!!! Thank you, thank you thank you. Happened to have Claussen (dill) pickles on hand as daughter likes them for sandwhiches. I have had this severe cramp for five hours and went on your site for relief.

Hi Bebe

Yes, I heard about pickle juice. I also heard about Vaper Rub, the kind you rub on your chest for a cold.. It works in less than a minute after applying to the cramp. It really works.

Take care Bebe

Gary

Due to cancer treatment, I've had excruciating muscle cramps... the kind that are rock hard and hurt for several days after the cramping goes down. Magnesium helps, but oncologist explained that magnesium is "contra-indicated" for cancer. She suggested Coconut water... it has a lot of potassium. This really helped a lot. I still get occasional mild cramps... no big deal. Hope this helps.

Culinary Argan Oil cured my muscle cramps and the muscle crams of 2 other people in my family.

I was getting terrible muscle cramps - sometimes as bad as 10X a day - I was afraid to go anywhere because I didn't know when I would unexpectedly get them and they were extremely painful and scary - I didn't know what was causing them & still don't.

I started taking 2 teaspoons a day of culinary Argan oil (one teaspoon at lunch, one at dinner), and within a few weeks, I realized the cramps were occurring less & less - it's been about 2 months since I started taking the Argan oil, and the cramps that I experienced for about 6 months are finally gone! I can't believe it and wanted to share on this site, which has helped me to find natural solutions for other health issues. Two family members who also started taking the Argan oil also noticed their cramps were went away - they did not get them as bad as I did, and I think that's why their results were more immediate. I highly recommend this amazing oil that not many people know about!!

There are two forms of it - the topical Argan oil and the lesser known culinary Argan oil. You can't ingest the topical kind - only the culinary kind. Argan oil is from Morocco and Israel.

Dear Robert, Yesterday I had severe cramping on my right leg and I came here looking for a solution. Yours worked instantly! Thank you so much.

Rub your stomach in a circular motion (clockwise) with a little pressure for a couple of minutes to help stop the leg cramps...

Hi Grace I would still suspect a mineral requirement not being met. Add some Trace minerals to your daily water or more easily add 1/4 tsp sea salt (with it's 84+ essential minerals) to your daily water. And make sure you are drinking enough water for your body weight, so many of us are not. Also see watercure. Best to you

You need to try mag. oil spray. You can get it at a health food store. I tried the pills. Got nothing so I tried the oil spray and I'll never try anything else. I have been awakened to some horrific leg cramps and spray it on and within minutes it's gone. I've even sprayed it on like half way down my leg and I got a cramp and it stops where the spray ended it's the weirdest thing but the best ever. My spray is a mandatory item on my night stand.

Magnesium is essential for a host of bodily functions. Muscles depend on magnesium a great deal. The modern Western diet mitigates against adequate magnesium balance in the body. The average, modern person lacks enough magnesium and this can often lead to a miriad of problems, the cause of which (inadequate magnesium in some/many cases), is frequently over-looked. Even if our food choices contained adequate magnesium (very doubtful these days because of soil depletion), then we are still left with the problem of the difficulty of the body being able to ABSORB whatever magnesium is available. Magnesium is not easily absorbed internally!! What to do? Well, I have found that Magnesium Chloride is the most easily absorbed and it fixed my severe, leg muscle cramps in a flash! Really ... very quickly. I was so impressed. Other people favour other types such as the Citrate form but for actual severe cramping I would stick with liquid Mag. Chloride as I know it worked for me at least. Having said all of the above, spraying on just a little Mag.Gel to the affected site and giving a QUICK, brief rub will help greatly, as will Epsom Salts 15 minute bathing, as Magnesium is often best absorbed through the skin (trans-dermally).

Spasms are both muscle and nerve related often relating to mineral deficiencies (and dehydration or fluid-transmission problems). Worse, yet, it is very common that when you treat one deficiency, you create an imbalance in the other(s), in a constant see-saw action. Mineral deficiencies are very common in people habitually taking meds/foods/drinlk that deplete certain minerals; also in athletes, outdooor laborers in hot climates, and in habitual drug/alcohol users (esp crack/meth).

The minerals calcium, magnesium, potassium and zinc MUST be kept in proper balance with each other in order for muscles/nerves to work properly. (Simply put: Calcium controls contraction of muscles, Magnesium controls relaxation of a contracted muscle, Potassium and Zinc controls many necessary adjunct functions, including the uptake of fluids and minerals into muscle tissue, and transmission nerve signals).

One of the easiest/fastest/affordable ways to rebalance your mineral levels (without paying for extensive testing/measuring and dosing) is by purchasing a homeopathic mix of "tissue salts" (aka "cell salts") available at most good health food stores. Since you dont know your mineral levels, and your problem is ongoing for awhile (and could be from several causes and/or multiple imbalances), I would choose the bottle that contains all the basic cell salts; one of several choices is named "Bio-Plasma" made by Hylands ($18 for 1000 tabs; which will last you 6months or years). Take as directed (under tongue; several times a day) until you get relief, then stop. Since they are homeopathic, they will balance themselves out properly over time (as long as you stop taking them each time you get relief). If/when you have a relapse , start taking them again as directed (until you get relief, then stop; then restart them if/when you relapse; stopping & starting over & over again). This will slowly/surely reload both your tissues and body fluids to the proper levels, correcting any deficiencies (which takes more time in deep/damaged tissue).

Hylands has a great laymans website for more details explaining the theory & practices of homeopathy, and cell-salts, and the particular function/workings of each salt (which can all be bought separately, and in different "combos").

Although the Bio-Plasma combo works slower than single salts, it is much more thorough in re-balancing your entire system; adequately replenishing (and eventually helping to repair) muscles, tissues, nerves, transmitters, etc. Otherwise, using a single salt may just be putting a small bandaid on a much more extensive problem.

When you no longer have any relapses at all (over a much longer period then previously), then put your cell-salts away and be sure to take a (high-quality) multi-vitiamin/mineral supplement dialy; and eat a healthy/balanced diet with lots of fresh (or fresh-frozen) colorful veggies and fruits, and plenty of water daily. Do not eat canned foods; do not drink sodas or exceed 2 caffinated drinks per day (if that)! Stay hydrated!

If cell-salts don't solve your spasms, then at least you know your minerals levels are probably not the primary issue. (Good Luck & Best Wishes! )

PS: Bottle/can "Tonic Water" has similar features/functions as Quinine (in minute doses), so it may be handy in-a-pinch (but not to be used as a substitute for re-balancing your minerals! ).

Liquid magnesium is actually magnesium oil. It works almost instantly when rubbed on a cramp. If you get leg cramps, they often originate in the buttocks, so rub some on there as well. Magnesium oil is far more effective than oral magnesium as it penetrates the muscle itself, releasing a spasm. It is not exactly an oil but magnesium chloride in saturation (with water) which gives it an oily feeling. If it stings your skin, just wet your hand with a little water and rub over the spot. That usually solves the problem.

Hello Ms Peggy from Sacramento;

My understanding of how the H202 is working to relieve leg's muscle spasms is simple: spasming may be lack of oxygen. Others deficiencies... Such as lack of magnesium can also cause spasms. But you got it right and found peroxide worked.

But go one step further. The spasms and the fact that extra oxygen helped is a possible warning for you. You might have oxygen deficiency in your system. I take Natural (not synthetic) vitamin E to help deliver oxygen throughout the body... Especially muscles. Remember the heart is a muscle.

So the point is this: If you were having muscle cramping for years and if the hydrogen peroxide helped, then you might be oxygen depleted and that is dangerous most importantly for the heart.

Vitamin E (which is refined out of virtually all our grains) is essential to oxygenate muscles. I've taken 800 iu daily for about 40 years. E does 20 different things in the system. By taking E, I don't have to take an aspirin to thin my blood, for instance. By taking E I don't worry about cholesterol levels, because nothing is sticking to arteries, the E coating the veins and arteries. By taking E I know there will be no sudden heart craved spasm of my heart... instant death.

Remember the heart is constantly working and of all the muscles the one you cannot afford to have spasm!

Natural E is called "d-alpha tocopherol" and you get it in health food stores ... not in drug stores which sell the synthetic.

Start with 200 iu daily and over a few months increase to 400 and then go to 800. E will dissolve existing plaque formation so the slow start up of E is better so there is not a sudden release of a clump of plaque.

Glad you found a solution,

Dave