The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Hmm, I'd always thought of Charley Horses as mild cramps that happened while exercising. This is severe pain while resting. Some searches claim that is a variant of the same thing, so maybe it is, and the treatment seems similar. At least that gives it a probable actual name.
I also have heard what you’ve described above (abrupt and major calf cramp while sleeping/resting) called a Charlie horse. The mild cramp while exercising (presumably in your side/abs), I’ve always called a stitch.
I used to get Charlie horses (as in, exactly what you’ve described, to a T) pretty often (like, once every couple months) during a period when I was taking much worse care of myself. The last time I got one was a few months ago after a, let’s say, rather significant night of drinking. Before that I hadn’t had one in years. As far as I know, dehydration is the main cause, as well as a lack of potassium, which is why they correlate with excessive drinking and being hungover. Being overtired can also bring them on, I think, although that’s probably a more indirect causation via tiredness fucking up your body in general. I’d honestly suggest just drinking more water during the day and adding a few bananas to your weekly diet, and stretching won’t hurt either.
If you don’t notice any change after doing that for a while it may be worth asking a doctor to do some tests/screening in case you have some other, less common sort of deficiency going on. But I’d bet it helps.
I already drink a lot of water pretty much every day. In fact, I had the idea that might be contributing to the problem, from washing away electrolytes. I did start adding a packet of this Liquid IV electrolyte supplement that we have available at work to the water I drink with my workday lunch, which has a pretty comparable amount of potassium to a banana reportedly. It may take the better part of a year to see if it really does the trick though, due to the low frequency.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link