What about leg cramps?

Cramp refers to the sudden involuntary contraction of muscles, which can cause muscle stiffness and pain. But leg cramps are the most common experience for ordinary people. Leg cramp is a common symptom, so what is the cause of leg cramp? Let's have a look.

What is the cause of leg cramp?

1, weak and tired

Excessive exercise, especially anaerobic exercise, causes muscles to contract continuously in a short period of time, producing a large amount of metabolic waste in the body. The state of muscle tension at night has not been improved, and the excessive accumulation of acid metabolites has not been cleaned up in time, which will stimulate calf cramps. The poor muscle strength of the elderly and the decline of body metabolic function are also one of the reasons.

2. Cold stimulation

Cold is the most common direct cause of cramps, which can directly stimulate the strong contraction of leg muscles and sudden vasospasm.

3. Hypocalcemia

Calcium ion plays an important role in muscle contraction. The absorption capacity of calcium in the elderly is weakened, and the loss of calcium is obvious. When the calcium concentration in blood is too low due to excessive intake of calcium by children and pregnant women, muscles are easily excited and twitched.

4. Vascular factors

It is often the internal cause of cramps. When atherosclerosis or thrombosis occurs in arteries, blood circulation is blocked, local tissues are ischemic and anoxic, and physiological functions are disordered, which will cause chills, numbness and intermittent claudication of lower limbs, that is, numbness, pain and even spasm of calf muscles appear when walking, disappear after rest, and reappear when walking again; In severe cases, persistent pain may occur, and the pulse of lower limb arteries, especially dorsal foot arteries, is weakened or disappeared. Metabolites can't be taken away in time. When it reaches a certain concentration, it will stimulate muscle contraction and cause painful cramps.

5, sweating too much

Exercise for a long time, anaerobic exercise, sweating, due to a large number of liquids and electrolytes in the body, a large number of metabolic waste accumulation, internal environment disorder, low calcium, low potassium, low magnesium, prone to convulsions.

6. Local oppression

If you lie on your back for a long time, the quilt will press on your feet, or lie prone for a long time, so that your feet will press on the bed, forcing some muscles of your calf to be in a state of compression for a long time, resulting in "passive contracture" of muscles and insufficient blood supply.

How to treat leg cramps?

1, toe grabbing and muscle stretching

No matter when you are exercising or sleeping, when your calf cramps, you can immediately reach out and grab the toe of the cramped foot, tilt the toe upward as far as possible, push the heel downward as far as possible, and straighten your knee at the same time.

2. Cross arm method

If the right calf cramps, hold the left arm high; If the left calf cramps, raise your right arm. After raising the arm, I feel that the arm is stretched, which affects the whole body. Or the feeling of stretching to the whole body through the action of raising your arm.

3. Pressure method

When the calf cramps, you can immediately press the midpoint of the upper lip. After pressing, gastrocnemius spasm will gradually relax and the pain will be relieved.

4, gastrocnemius nerve root pressing method

On the inside of the knee joint, there is a place where the head of gastrocnemius muscle is attached, and the nerve root leading to gastrocnemius muscle is here. So when the calf cramps, feel with your fingers that there is a hard and protruding muscle on the inside of the knee joint. Press here hard, the nerve that caused the cramp will calm down and the cramp in the calf will stop.

Methods of relieving teaching spasm

As we all know, when people reach a certain age, their metabolism slows down and their bones become loose, and various diseases will follow. Some old people often cramp because of lack of exercise. Although the cramp time is short, it is still very painful, especially for the elderly, who are inherently inconvenient to move. At this time, if they are not careful, they may even fall down. What if they have leg cramps?

First of all, lie on your back, straighten your cramped feet as far as possible, and don't bend your knees. Pull your cramped toes in the opposite direction of cramping for several minutes. If there are family members around to help, let them hold the cramped forefoot and pull it in the opposite direction, the patient will strive to ensure that the calf is in a straight state.

Second, apply anti-inflammatory and analgesic ointment to the spasmodic muscles, or use sports spray, and then rub and massage the calf muscles to relieve muscle spasms.

3. Focus on pressing Weizhong (at the midpoint of the popliteal transverse stripes, between the tendon of biceps femoris and the tendon of semitendinosus), Zusanli (at the four fingers below the external knee, at the edge of the tibia), Yanglingquan (at the outer side of the calf, when the fibular head is depressed in the front and lower part) and Chengshan (at the middle of the rear side of the calf, when the calf is straightened or the heel is lifted, a sharp angle depression appears under the gastrocnemius muscle. If the patient's whole mood is very tense, you can pinch Renzhong point near the middle of the upper lip and Hegu point at the tiger's mouth with your thumb and forefinger, which can calm your mood and relieve pain.

Fourth, hot compress the gastrocnemius muscle (posterior leg muscle) of the affected limb with a hot water bottle or hot towel to improve local blood circulation and promote the excretion of metabolites. Pay attention to the warmth of the calf after hot compress.

It can be seen that there are still many ways to deal with cramps. I believe the above points are very helpful to you. After all, cramping is a very common phenomenon, and many people are troubled by this disease in real life. To prevent cramps, everyone should exercise more, pay attention to calcium supplementation in diet, and ensure a balanced diet.

If the muscles on your body talk too fast, it is particularly easy to cause cramps in your legs and feet. Because during strenuous exercise, everyone's body is in a very tense state, both the muscles in the legs and the muscles in the feet contract too fast, and the relaxation time is too short, which leads to inconsistent coordination, and then cramps in the legs and feet will occur.

In addition, after a series of exercises, a lot of sweat is produced, and the calcium loss in the body is very serious. When the concentration of modification in the human body is particularly low, the muscles are particularly excited, leading to spasm.

Another phenomenon is that the posture is wrong when sleeping. In this case, it is particularly easy to cause the muscles to be relaxed for a long time, thus causing a phenomenon called passive spasm, which is the symptom of leg and foot cramps.