Do you have cramps? •VladiHealthTips•

Hello my Steemian friends and welcome back to another episode of my health tips.

Probably you know this feeling, waking up in the middle of the night because one of your muscles becomes hard, tight and painful. Congratulations you have a cramp! Maybe you are asking yourself in the morning why you cramped last night. Most likely I have the answer for you....

What causes muscle cramps?

There are many things that can create cramps:

• poor blood circulation
• strenuous activities
• Dehydration
• Magnesium or Calcium deficiency
• Lack of electrolytes NaCl and Kalium
• Nervous system
• Alcohol
• pregnancy
• diseases
• drugs

But most of the times it is the deficiency of Magnesium or Calcium and electrolytes.

To understand it you should maybe look at both posts from @ovij How do muscles contract and How do nerves conduct electrical impulses

Now you know that calcium is for the contraction of your muscles and for the neural signals. Magnesium is the antagonist of Calcium. If you have a Magnesium deficiency in your muscle cells, then they would contract without relaxing, you would recognize it as a muscle cramp.
Calcium, Natrium and Kalium affect the nervous system. If there are something out of balance your muscles will receive false information and could contract.
By the way... most cramps at night are caused by a lag of Calcium. And even after a hard workout you shouldn’t get cramps, if everything is alright.

But why do you have a deficiency and how you can treat it?

You can get a lack of Natrium, Kalium, Calcium and Magnesium by:

• unbalanced diet
• Sweating
• Increased need because of stress, sport and pregnancy
• Vitamin D deficiency
• and some diseases and medication like diuretics

Treatment:

When you get a cramp stretch out the muscle until the cramp stops!
After that you can massage and use hot and cold packs on muscles that are tight or tense.

Prevention:

• Balanced diet
• Stay well hydrated (after a heavy workout or when you sweating you can drink coconut water there is a lot of Kalium)
• Vitamin D Supplementation read in the last episode more about Vitamin D and how it can save your life
• If you have an increased need of Magnesium, I recommend Magnesium Citrat, it can be better absorbed by your body

Stay healthy my friends!

If you have any ideas for the next episode, leave it in the comments below.
Your Vladi

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Previous Episodes of VladiHealthTips:

Episode 1: Do you have back pain?
Episode 2: How Vitamin D can save your life