Coping with aching, stiff and cramping muscles for people with multiple sclerosis is a way of life. Many other individuals experience muscle cramps, which lead to limited movement, pain and lack of sleep.
While conventional medicines may help decrease the discomfort from muscle cramps and other symptoms, they don’t usually provide patients with complete relief. They also tend to come with side effects their patients find intolerable. Some patients are now looking into marijuana and muscle cramps treatment to find relief when conventional treatments don’t seem to tackle their symptoms.
What Are Muscle Cramps?
Muscle cramps are involuntary and sudden contractions of your muscles. You likely know they can cause severe pain if a sudden charley horse ever stopped you in your tracks or has awakened you during the night. Although muscle cramps are usually harmless, they can make it virtually impossible to use the muscle affected while they are occurring. Cramps can affect part or all of one or more of your muscles.
The muscle groups most commonly affected include:
Hamstrings or back of your thigh
Back of your lower calf/leg
Quadriceps or front of your thigh
Also quite common are cramps in the arms, feet and hands, along with the rib cage and abdomen. Stretching the muscle can help stop the cramp. Also, the cramping muscle will feel bulging or hard.
Muscle cramps often occur in middle-aged and older healthy people. However, they can affect younger individuals as well. While cramps may occur while you’re resting, they tend to occur during or after intense exercise. Some individuals experience cramps while they’re sleeping.
Common causes of leg cramps are:
Cramps due to exercise
Benign cramps happening for no apparent reason, usually during the night
Just about everyone has had a muscle cramp at some point in their life. However, certain factors can increase the severity of the cramps and your risk of having them. Some factors include:
Becoming dehydrated
Having tight calf muscles from inactivity, not stretching or fluid buildup in the lower leg
Taking certain drugs
Having an underactive thyroid gland or a nerve disorder
Having low electrolyte levels in your blood
Things like alcoholism, diuretics, vitamin D deficiency, certain endocrine disorders or other conditions causing fluid loss can lead to low electrolyte levels.
You may get cramps shortly after going through dialysis, since dialysis can quickly remove your body’s fluid, which lowers your electrolyte levels.
Various other things can cause muscle cramps, including:
Not stretching enough
Poor leg blood circulation
Being active in hot temperatures
Pinched nerve in your back or neck
Spinal cord injury
Working your calf muscles too intensely
Muscle fatigue
Some medications can also trigger muscle cramps as a side effect.
Types of Muscle Cramps
The numerous types of muscle cramps include the following:
True Cramps
True cramps may involve just one muscle, or they can involve a whole muscle group typically acting together, like your leg muscles or muscles that flex adjoining fingers. Many professionals believe hyperexcitability of the nerves responsible for stimulating your muscles causes true cramps. They’re among the most common form of skeletal muscle cramps and may occur in various circumstances.
Vigorous Activity Cramps
These are true cramps linked with muscle fatigue and vigorous muscle use, such as with unaccustomed activities or sports. They can occur during your activity or afterward, in some cases, hours later. Muscle fatigue from repetitive use or lying or sitting for a long period in an awkward position may also cause cramps.
Injury Cramps
After an injury like a broken bone, you may experience persistent muscle spasms occurring as a protective mechanism. The spasm, in this instance, stabilizes the injury area and minimizes movement. Most of the people order blue dream strain to cope it. You may suffer an injury to your muscle alone, which can cause your muscle to spasm.
Rest Cramps
Rest cramps are also common, particularly in older adults. Anyone, however, can experience them, including children. They usually occur at night. Night cramps, while not life-threatening, can disrupt your sleep and be painful. They may also recur several times during the night or several nights during the week.