I’m curious to know if anyone else has tried this.
What happened: we take Vitamin D in the winter - you would too if you lived in the UK - and this winter we started taking calcium as well. I was tasked with stocking up and getting the “three for” offer at a local pharmacy, and I screwed up - I got two calcium plus one calcium and magnesium.
As it happens, the latter says it can be used for leg cramps. Color me skeptical, but…really?? Also as it happens, I cycle a lot and suffer a lot from leg cramps afterwards, so with a resigned chuckle I said I would use the calcium and magnesium - after all, it was my screw-up.
A couple of weeks later it dawned on me that not only had I had no bad leg cramps, I had pretty much no cramps at all since I started taking the tabs. Weird - and impressive. This (I thought) merits a bit of research. Cochrane review, Please!
Cochrane reviews are meta-analyses of available clinical trials. This is what I found
And this is what it concluded:
How did the authors conclude?
The authors concluded that it is unlikely that magnesium supplementation is effective for idiopathic skeletal muscle cramps at any of the dosages and administration route used.
So there we are. It is what it is, I guess. Science says no, and my body says yes - an uncomfortable position to be in (no pun intended). If it’s the placebo effect, I’ll take it.
Anyone else tried magnesium for cramps? Any other thoughts?
If you have a magnesium deficiency for whatever reason (like many Diabetics) you can get various cramps, so taking magnesium supplements are beneficial. If you are not magnesium deficient I don’t believe taking more would be beneficial.
I’ve never been told that I was magnesium deficient (and I’m not diabetic). It was a surprise to me that it seems to help with cramps. I’m planning to do a sort of Dechallenge/Rechallenge - that’s usually done to determine if a side effect is really caused by a treatment: does it stop if you stop the medicine? Does it restart if you start taking the medicine again? This is as close as I can get to being my own control group.
I’ve heard that it’s the calcium that’s effective in preventing muscle cramps. My primary care physician told me that when he goes on long bike rides with his cycling group, 15+ miles, they always take a couple of Tums; someone always brings along a bottle to share.
There are lots of combination calcium/magnesium supplements; maybe it’s the combination that’s helping you?
Also, years ago I used to get bad menstrual cramps, but consistently taking calcium helped to minimize them.
Magnesium has helped me with cramps, but more importantly, it helps with extrasystoles (irregular heartbeats). It calms the heart and, when taken in the evening, helps me fall asleep and sleep peacefully.
However, medical consultation is recommended for combination preparations (with calcium, etc.).
Yes, calcium + magnesium helps with my night leg cramps. There are several forms of magnesium and I find that only one helps me.
Experiment. If it helps, it helps. Not so long ago, docs would go from morgue dissection to delivering babies without washing their hands. It’s not as if medical science is at our pinnacle of knowledge.
I screwed up the restocking order just a couple of weeks ago - throughout the winter up until then I hadn’t been taking any magnesium and I hadn’t noticed any diminution of cramps. These last few weeks, taking magnesium, very much so. Weather could be a confounding factor - in some parts of the country it has been the wettest January on record, so my cycling has been somewhat limited. But last week I did 141 miles in 4 days - without cramps. Yeah, it is anecdotal, but it’s intriguing.
If it dawned on you, you had not been thinking of it. Does the placebo effect work when you forget about the thing? I know you don’t have to believe in it for the placebo effect to work, but you should at least be aware of it. Colour me surprised.
Good luck with your double blind control group of one!
As a physician for more than 4 decades, I spent a fair amount of time trying to help my older patients with leg cramps, and it was always frustrating that various treatments failed more than they helped, including magnesium, calcium, potassium, soap under the sheets, vitamin B, stretching, exercising more, exercising less, calcium channel blockers, muscle relaxers (which don’t actually relax muscles), gabapentin (paradoxically considered both a cause of and treatment of muscle cramps), hydration, applying heat, applying cold, taking NSAIDs, stopping NSAIDs, yoga, meditation, burnt offerings, and deciding to no longer give a Flying Fickle Finger of Fate about it anymore.
Now that I’m old and retired and have nocturnal cramps to beat the band, I find I get relief myself by consuming a home-made electrolyte drink of kosher salt, lemon juice, stevia, and flavoring syrups like those from the Torani brand mixed in unsoftened well water from the strata feeding into Lake Michigan. 8 to 16 oz of that mix (proportions provided upon request) has reduced the cramps by over 75% for the Mrs. and myself over the last 8 months. No science behind it whatsoever, we started drinking the stuff as a cheap alternative to gatorade type rehydration beverages after exercise when we noted that we didn’t cramp up as much. YMMV, it’s anecdotal and we know how reliable that is, but damn we sleep better now.
I’ve lived a life of bad cramps, particularly in the calves and arch of the feet (I get them elsewhere like in the neck - that one really sucks!). If I keep up on the bananas and electrolytes when I exercise (I cycle a lot and it sucks getting leg cramps while riding), I can keep them tamed down quite a bit. However, I started taking creatine and since I haven’t had a “wake up screaming in pain” in the middle of the night since. No more both calves cramping at the same time, no more neck cramps. Not sure it is related, but is seems like it to me.
but I wonder how it can work when you are not aware of having taken it. If you forget that you have taken it, and it still works, it is either magic or your unconscious or subconscious or whatever is doing some really heavy lifting.
But it works for you? Or you have the impression it works and you feel better? Or you simply feel better? Hey, good for you!
Now, concerning that double blind control group of one you are setting up: can you elaborate on the protocol you are following to randomise yourself?
If you exersize or perspire a lot you probably can benefit from a magnesium suppliment.
If your doctor has you on a water pill for edema, heart failure, kidney issues, etc., they should already have you on a suppliment. Magnesium gets flushed out of your system through water loss.
Ah, I see what you mean. Actually, I was very aware that I was taking it, because the calcium tabs are pleasant and chewable, and the calcium and magnesium ones are swallow tablets, and they’re so damn big that (I realized later) the bottle has a diagram of just how big they are on the label - proper horse tablets. It was more that I never considered for a minute that they actually might work for cramp, so took no notice of any possible effect until I realized that, stone me, they did seem to work.
I’ll submit the protocol to the group for review in due course.
