Leg Cramps in Pregnancy - There is help!
You know you’re getting to the business end of your pregnancy because you start to get more pain! In my case jack-knifing out of bed at 5am with leg cramps.
This is a sub-optimal way to wake up, so I turned to Google in search of answers. What I got was what you often get with non fetally harmful pregnancy conditions “we don’t know why it happens, try eating differently, put up with it”. In this case, try eating more salts & minerals (Potassium, magnesium, zinc and sodium were popular suggestions), walk around to walk it off, put some heat on your leg.
The key here being “we don’t know why it happens so we really don’t know how to stop it happening“. Getting cramps when you’re running a marathon, you can kinda see why you might be a bit short of some vital minerals, and why keeping your electrolites up would be a good idea. Sleeping in bed seems an altogether less strenuous activity (especially when you’re 6 months pregnant), so it’s harder to see why at 5am you suddenly run out of something (assuming you’re not sweating etc in which case removing a duvet seems a good idea).
As it happens, I’ve had general OOS pain issues, and pre-pregnancy had been getting treated at the Southern Cross Pain Clinic in Wellington - but had been discharged. So as I had some hip pain as well I booked myself in to see what could be done that didn’t involve eating my own weight in bananas (Potassium).
Apparently there is quite a simple explanation for why you might get leg cramps in pregnancy. The part of your spine/back where the messages about cramps come from is about a hand width above the small of your back. So your causal options are referred pain (check, pain in hips could do that), and/or just pain from trying to compensate for carrying a 5kg lump out in front - again more plausible than that you’ve had a run on your magnesium store.
Consequently there is some safe treatment that seems to work.
I got saline injections into the area, as well as into my hips, and it’s keeping the cramps under control. In addition, when I get that “pre cramp” feeling in my legs and feet, I apply a hot wheat pack to my back and it’s meant that so far I’ve had no more jack-knifing out of bed.
The cost of private treatment was about $175 I think, so a bit more than bananas, but worth it I think.
The doctor is Dr Giresh Kanji - a very sympathetic man. If you’ve got health insurance you can probably get it for nix if you get a referal from your midwife or obstetrician (or even GP).