Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Who else suffers from leg cramps?

worked with an older guy (read my age now) when I was guiding, he always slept in the cook tent by himself due to leg cramps or so he said, I thought it was odd but hey works for me.


but as I've gotten older I get them now and they seem to be with more frequency and intensity


right calf woke me up at 5 a.m. and I could tell there was gonna be problems before going to bed I felt it twitching

guess I should have drank the pickle juice before going to bed instead of hobblin in there one legged and pouring a cup.


normally have a pretty decent pain threshold, but these sumbitches hurt. Anyone else get em?

yes! I get them pretty often, tried home remedies of bananas, pickle juice, and mustard (one at a time) still got them same as ever.

Great thread!!!

I don't but know a guy that does...he swears by jello. He mixes the powder up with warm water and drinks it. My wife also gets them at times, she says magnesium helps...

I do but a quick jab to the offending muscle with an ice-pick seems to always prove who will be calling the shots during slumber.

I used to but started drinking a cup of bone broth every day and they stopped. You can buy it for under $2.00 a quart at Wal-Mart and actually tastes pretty dang good heated up.

Lack of potassium, magnesium, or water (dehydration) are often culprits. I had some dandy cramps after pushing deer all day. Lack of water for my case. Drank a few bottles of water and a banana and I was better.

Tonic water (the nasty chit with quinine) is what doctors and nurses recommended to me.

I used to get bad leg cramps middle of the night after dialysis.

Water and seasalt... Pink

I can still get them if I try just a little, but I try not to get too dehydrated before I retire and don't mind getting up in the middle of the night. My wife makes the bed with the sheets pulled down too tight so I have to keep those "kicked out" when I sleep. Occasionally I sleep with cotton socks on to keep my feet warm and avoid tightening up. Old age ain't for sissies.

Could be all that or it could be spinal stenosis. Only one thing will fix that. Surgery.
If it is stenosis, it will only get worse. Better get it looked at by a Dr.

Fink65 Yeah old age is not lots of fun some days(I'm 75) but it's a gift denied to many.

I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee and went total decaf in the morning. I also started adding more salt to my diet. Drinking decaf in the morning helps to hydrate me. If I drink caffeinated coffee in the afternoon or I drink too much alcohol I have some pretty bad leg cramps at night since both tend to dehydrate me. Adding a multi B vitamin every few days seems to help also.

kwg

get em once in a while.

Get them once in the proverbial blue moon, usually at night in bed. The muscle of my calf knots up in a ball the size of a golf ball and every bit as hard, I cana barely stand up the pain is so intense they take a day or two to completely resolve. Last time it happened the anesthesiologist was prepping me for rotator cuff surgery, I cried out in agony and he leaped across the gurney and grabbed my leg. Never told me how he knew exactly what to do, didn't matter just so long as he kept the muscle from knotting up.

My wife has complained about them occasionally for several years. She has a really high pain tolerance, so I didn't think think that they were probably any worse than a regular muscle cramp until I got my first one a month or so back. Sumbitching calf clenched up and got me out of bed and had me wide awake immediately. Damn calf ached for about a day and a half after that.

If I make a couple trips up and down the tree in a climbing tree stand, I'm certain to get them that night. It really helps for me to take a couple Aleve before bed. No amount of drinking or stretching seems to make any difference.

A side note in 2010...I fell off a 10' wall to concrete and landed on my side /broke nothing...but. I get a cramp now and then...... INSIDE my chest ...muscle that holds your parts inside together.... Good god !!!! Their ain't a thing you can do to stretch it /nothing but a cramp from hell !!!! Like 4 big toe cramps at the same time......I suck !!!!

I get them now and then, and have been for about ten years now. I normally awaken just as soon as it starts. I'll dive outa bed and try to stand so as to keep the offending calf muscle stretched out and usually it's gone in about thirty seconds. Recently I had one I could not head off, had to just lay there and take it. I might oughta keep that Smith Model 10 a little further out of reach. One night I dived out of bed and lost my balance and crashed into the wall. My poor wife thought she was in the market for a funeral.

During fishing season, I get them every time I go out on Erie from fighting the waves with your leg muscles all day.
You don't even notice your doing it 'till the cramps hit at night.
I also get hand cramps from reeling all day. I've driven home over 90 miles with turning the steering wheel with my wrists.
Nothing like standing next to your bed, unable to move, with tears of pain in your eyes for 2 to 4 hours at night.

Best I found is quinine water, but it doesn't work at least 1/2 the time.

Bad part is, I'll be back out on Erie the next day.

"I'm to sick to fish" was said by nobody, ever.