Foo - Charlie horses in the night

That's got to be one of the worst things to wake up to: the excruciating pain of a charlie horse. You try to straiten your leg out, but you can't, because it hurts so bad, so you lay there in pain, praying that it goes away.

Just sayin..

Never had one... I think.

banana + glass of water before bed = never have a charlie horse.

I had one of these while swimming, I nearly drowned.


+1 on the banana.

Get up, put some weight on the leg and the charlie horse will ease. Airwick is right, though, a banana has a real good chance of helping this. Adds potassium to your system.

Get up, put some weight on the leg and the charlie horse will ease. Airwick is right, though, a banana has a real good chance of helping this. Adds potassium to your system.

yep, bananas are great. Don't forget the glass of water though or the old system can get "clogged",....

As usual I'm going to recommend that you add Magnesium to your diet. Your muscles use magnesium to relax and calcium to contract (ease off on the dairy as well). Your experiencing a muscle contraction which won't release.

Why at night?

Well your liver does cleanse at night while your sleeping and magnesium is one of the nutrients your body needs to detoxify so the liver is drawing the magnesium out of your muscles which is leaving them susceptible to cramps.

I'm now guessing that you have trouble falling to sleep at night as well. Taking magnesium just before bed time works BETTER (no dangerous side effects) than sleeping tablets. Try it out.

Anthony

Nope. Don't have any problem falling asleep at night. This isn't a common occurrence. It just happened last night.

Nope. Don't have any problem falling asleep at night. This isn't a common occurrence. It just happened last night.

Well that's a good sign that you not seriously lacking magnesium but a lack of magnesium is still the number 1 reason for a muscle cramp so I would try supplementing in a modest manner.

Anthony

What is "charlie horse" in English? a cramp? I used to get those in the arches of my feet at night. Getting up and walking on it was the only thing that helped.

What is "charlie horse" in English? a cramp? I used to get those in the arches of my feet at night. Getting up and walking on it was the only thing that helped.

Yes a cramp and it is English. :) I usually get them in my calves. They can be very painful. The above suggestion of putting weight on it works for me.

What is "charlie horse" in English? a cramp? I used to get those in the arches of my feet at night. Getting up and walking on it was the only thing that helped.

It's where the back of your leg cramps really bad. It hurts like a motherf-er.

Yep, hurts like a MOFO, however better to get one in bed than while swimming! I was swimming in an apartment swimming pool ie: no lifeguards.

I'm careful how I kick off anything in a pool ever since.

ahh i just had this conversation about charlie horses yesterday with a friend. i get those ALL THE TIME on my feet. i scream and yell in pain until it turns into uncontrollable laughter. always in the middle of the night/in the pool. or sometimes right as i'm clicking out of my pedal. :/

yea, you know us yung'uns, lacking magnesium and potassium...

Even worse than charlie horses: Charlie unicorns.

YouTube - Charlie The Unicorn

Lmao

Lmao

OMG...you got it. :twitchy:

Seriously, every other adult I've shown that cartoon to hasn't gotten it. My kids showed it to me and I think it's hilarious. Man...I love my kids.

I was expecting there to be a glue factory inside Candy Mountain, actually, but a kidney theft ring is also lulzy. I fwd it to my BF because it's quasi-animated, he's an animation student.

Yep, hurts like a MOFO, however better to get one in bed than while swimming! I was swimming in an apartment swimming pool ie: no lifeguards.

I'm careful how I kick off anything in a pool ever since.

I was swimming to a platform about a 1/4 of a mile off the beach in Waikiki I got one a little more than half way to the platform. Talk about scary. I rolled over on my back and floated and worked it out.

Yikes! I panicked and couldn't even tread water, I was not doing an adequate job of staying afloat and I was screaming my head off...finally someone came and fished me out.

That's got to be one of the worst things to wake up to: the excruciating pain of a charlie horse. You try to straiten your leg out, but you can't, because it hurts so bad, so you lay there in pain, praying that it goes away.

Just sayin..
If you're prone to this condition, avoid sleeping with large dogs.

I once got major cramps in both hams at the same time once when I was sleeping with a lab/Dane mix. Scared the crap out of the dog -- she thought she was under attack and defended herself appropriately. As a result, an already painful process was made much more painful. The expression "let sleeping dogs lie" is not an empty one...

^ LOL that's hilarious!

Yikes! I panicked and couldn't even tread water, I was not doing an adequate job of staying afloat and I was screaming my head off...finally someone came and fished me out.

You just need to relax. Floating on your back is pretty easy to do and an important skill to learn.

I can float even in an upright position. It is easy to do in salt water but in fresh water, it might require some slight arm movements to stay afloat. I am fairly lean (25 BMI) for 50 so it is not like I have an extra flotation. :) Plus my BMI was probably well under 20 when I was much younger and I was able to do it then. I key is being comfortable in the water.

I'm not a terribly fantastic swimmer, I try, I like water but I only made it partway through the second badge in swimming lessons as a kid, I barely barely passed SCUBA lessons, they wanted to fail me actually, lol.

Very difficult to "relax" when your entire leg is cramped up in severe agony.

Very difficult to "relax" when your entire leg is cramped up in severe agony.

Actually it is not. I guess you just need to be real comfortable in water. And you really don't need to be a good swimmer to do that but I guess it helps.



I also took SCUBA and found it to be of great benefit in dealing with stressful situations. I have had my mask and regulator kicked off my face and flashlight out of my hand on a night dive inside a sunken bus. In another situation, I became entangled in line at night. Each time I called on my training and just dealt with it. Also lost my dive party at night once (bad stuff always happens at night :) ) I finally found a party only to find they were not mine! :) I did finally find the party I left with from the boat.

During the "breathe without face mask" drill at the bottom of a shallow bay, I panicked. My brain refused to inhale through my mouth while my nose was surrounded by water. I started to freak out, looked up, was gonna shoot for the surface (that would no doubt be fatal) so the instructor slapped a hand over my regulator which for some weird reason, worked.

Sadly, my biological father's defective DNA makes me clumsy in the water, rather than graceful and powerful as my mother is in the water.

eta: boy, have we derailed this thread or what? :P

OMG...you got it. :twitchy:

Seriously, every other adult I've shown that cartoon to hasn't gotten it. My kids showed it to me and I think it's hilarious. Man...I love my kids.

That's because every other adult can't get past the "Hey Charlie, hey Charlie, hey Charlieeeee" part.

OK, here's how it's going down. I value my Sunday spare time at $300 per hour. The movie is 3 min's & 45 seconds long. Therefore you owe me $18.75. I'll take payment by certified check or money order. :notamused:

Hijack time:

One morning I woke up from the alarm but found that I must have somehow slept on both my arms. Both were asleep. I couldn't move them. It was like someone stuck huge salamis to my body. I flung one arm like a dead fish on the clock and somehow it knocked it off. Then, as slap stick as it sounds, I had an itch on my nose and slung the other arm on my face. It hit me with such ferocity it almost broke my nose.

Hijack time:

One morning I woke up from the alarm but found that I must have somehow slept on both my arms. Both were asleep. I couldn't move them. It was like someone stuck huge salamis to my body. I flung one arm like a dead fish on the clock and somehow it knocked it off. Then, as slap stick as it sounds, I had an itch on my nose and slung the other arm on my face. It hit me with such ferocity it almost broke my nose.

That is scarily funny.

Hijack time:

One morning I woke up from the alarm but found that I must have somehow slept on both my arms. Both were asleep. I couldn't move them. It was like someone stuck huge salamis to my body. I flung one arm like a dead fish on the clock and somehow it knocked it off. Then, as slap stick as it sounds, I had an itch on my nose and slung the other arm on my face. It hit me with such ferocity it almost broke my nose.


I LOLd

Hijack time:

One morning I woke up from the alarm but found that I must have somehow slept on both my arms. Both were asleep. I couldn't move them. It was like someone stuck huge salamis to my body. I flung one arm like a dead fish on the clock and somehow it knocked it off. Then, as slap stick as it sounds, I had an itch on my nose and slung the other arm on my face. It hit me with such ferocity it almost broke my nose.

:roflmao2::roflmao2::roflmao2: