hi all i need some advice on leg cramps whilst cycling i am on Enalapril 5mg for high blood pressure , i have been told to take multi minerals to stop the cramps whilst i cycle , any surgestions please

The contraction/relaxation of muscle fibres is controlled by Calcium/magnesium.

The uptake of calcium and magnesium is determined by your Vitamin d status. Getting your 25(OH)D level tested will probably show your body is Vitamin D insufficient. Naturally, (if we lived naked as we evolved) our bodies became fine tuned to attain and maintain a level of 25(OH)D between 50ng-70ng perhaps up to 80ng 135-175nmol/l or possibly 200nmol/l.

To obtain those levels using supplements requires 4000-5000iu/daily for a woman and 5000-6000iu daily for a man.

If you started supplementing at 5000iu/daily today it will be 3 months before you achieve optimal status and somewhat longer before your magnesium/calcium levels are optimised.

Calcium Food sources are generally better utilised than supplemental calcium.

Magnesium food sources.

If you want to speed up the magnesium intake with supplements Magnesium Malate or taurinate are effective. I take 600mg daily of magnesium.

Vitalady.com is the cheapest source of high strength Biotech 5000iu/D3 I know (haven't used them yet myself so don't know the delivery charges) I use Iherb for most of my vits but that's because they use USPS and delivery to the UK is cheaper than vitacost/vitaminshoppe. ~~~~~~ will get you a $5 introductory discount from Iherb.

The same opposing actions of calcium/magnesium apply in your brain, With calcium exciting neurons and mangesium calming. Having low vitamin d status, and consequently lower than optimal calcium/magnesium absorption results in lower physical and mental performance. if you want peak athletic performance you need to optimise vitamin d status.

PS raising vitamin d status lowers blood pressure.

I just pop a potassium pill and I am right as rain

Cute little pup DarthBarth!

When I did SBD, we would drink milk or have dairy like yogurt or sour cream to combat leg cramps.

If you just need a good multi, try Centrum Silver as it doesn't have any iron and we don't do iron. But also, what the others say. Calcium, Potassium and Magnesium are all good for leg cramps. (Just be careful of the Potassium cause you can overdose on it)

Also..

Cramping of the muscles can be lack of Water..Dehydration..is a major culprit as well..So get plenty of H20

Good luck

Thanks, thats my baby. You got some precious snugglers yourself there I see


I took a calcium and a magnesium with my potassium this time and it did seem to help keep the leg cramps away a bit longer, I always did take the three, but never together. The potassium is quick relief though.

Presuming you're taking the kind you get without a prescription, you might want to take more than one. Pretty hard to overdose yourself orally; you'll get nasty stomach symptoms long before you're sick. You can use lite salt, too--KCl--and that will help. If you're sweating a lot, you can lose a lot of potassium, and it can be harder to find in a LC diet.

During the summer, I'll take three K+ tabs with every meal plus the lite salt and that keeps the twitchies out of my legs.

Potassium works for me. I have restless leg syndrome, but I find if I just eat half a banana, it goes away for a few weeks. I also get leg cramps when I am hungover. I think it has something to do with loss of electrolytes and vitamins/minerals. Not sure though, but something in the banana helps every time.

I absolutely agree with all this, because supplementing with magnesium has always helped me with getting rid of cramps, but I would like to add two additional comments.

According to Sally Fallon's book, "Nourishing Traditions", beef is a good source of, as she puts it, "usable magnesium". You don't see that in any of the web's lists (and I've looked at a few, including the one you posted).

I haven't had a chance to look into this one any further, but, I had always wondered, if a lot of people around the world have managed to survive on a "paleo" diet, where did they get their magnesium from? It would seem that all this stuff you read that tells you that you can only get your magnesium naturally via "whole grains, nuts and seeds", is another load of BS touted by the anti-saturated fat brigade.

And what they also don't tell you is that whole grains, nuts and seeds need to be soaked or sprouted to allow the phytic acid in these foods to be broken down and neutralized.

Sally Fallon says on p. 452 of the above-mentioned book:

"Untreated phytic acid can combine with calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and especially zinc in the intestinal tract and block their absorption. This is why a diet high in unfermented whole grains may lead to serious mineral deficiencies and block their absorption." (...)

"Soaking in warm water also neutralizes enzyme inhibitors, present in all seeds, and encourages the production of numerous beneficial enzymes. The action of these enzymes also increases the amount of many vitamins, especially B vitamins."

Now I know why eating tons of muesli (full of all those things that have lots of magnesium in them) never did much for my magnesium deficiency... I made brown rice for my family the other day and soaked it overnight before I cooked it. It had definitely started to ferment slightly, but the final result was very good! It's too carby for me to eat right now, but I tried a teaspoon and it was fine.

I am sure you would be fascinated by the info in Sally Fallon's book, Hutchinson, I really can recommend it. The stuff about enzymes is a real eye-opener. I've been following her tips for a couple of weeks now, and I do have better energy levels. I'm trying to eat lots of enzyme-rich foods and I think I am now absorbing the nutrients in the food I eat better.

amanda

I've been getting leg and foot cramps. I knew it was some kind of deficiency either calcium/magnesium OR potassium. To cover all bases, now I take a cal/mag chewy thing and also recalled a surgeon telling my dad (who was getting leg cramps) to drink DIET TONIC as Quinine is full of potassium (or take supplement)...Since then I am not having any problems anymore. PHEW!!!!!!!!!!

Restless leg syndrome is due to an iron deficiency - check out google, there's thousands of articles about it.

Iron deficiency can also cause severe cramping in the extremities, even the toes.

I can confirm from personal experience that there must be a link between restless leg syndrome and low iron.

I was very low in iron during my second pregnancy, but didn't take the recommended iron supplements as they DO NOT agree with my GI tract (just pass straight through - and I mean straight through!!!) and, besides, the reason for women being low in iron during pregnancy is so that there is no excess iron in the body to feed invading viruses or bacteria, infections etc, so I stayed away from it.

I didn't get any infections, but I did get restless leg syndrome for the latter few weeks of the pregnancy. It was a pain because I found it difficult to sleep, but as soon as I had had the baby, it went! I assume my iron levels went up again naturally.

amanda

I recently read that magnesium is digested in the small intestine, and I presume that that is probably true for all minerals, including iron.

I've read that many celiacs have extremely low iron, and perhaps it's because the villi of the small intestine are destroyed anytime they are exposed to wheat gluten.

There is a new iron supplement which is supposed to be on the retail shelves sometime this year, it's called Bifera, and it is said to have NO side effects.

Iron provokes all manner of digestive upsets and constipation, it's very hard to take. I know I am very very very low in iron, and on the few occasions I can FORCE myself to take medicinal amounts, the impact is so startlingly positive.

Did your doctor make certain that your child has sufficient iron levels?

Iron pills never helped me, and anyway I'd read such terrible fear-reports about the dangers of iron, so I didn't even know that the OTC iron pills are nowhere near the medicinal dose of iron given for iron deficiency anaemia.