Leg spasms aka Charlie Horses

On Feb. 4, 2015 I was having legs spasms, Charlie Horses. They would start from my toes, go up my leg, stop and start again in my ribs and back. I was in so much pain! I called Telehealth that night, after having about 3 of them, that lasted about 25 minutes each. The nurse advised me to go to the nearest hospital. So we went.  I wanted answers. So we went to the emerge. Waited around for 4 hours, for them to take blood to see if I had any blood clots, turned out I didn't. They ended up giving me morphine, and about ten mins after it started working, I started having stomach pain, sweating, my eyes were the size of pin holes (what I was told), feeling nauseous and wanted to puke. I was basically overdosing.. they gave me two doses! Maybe the best route would have been to ask me what my drug tolerance was. I don't take anything. A quarter piece of a Gravol knocks me out for half the day. I have a very low tolerance. They made me sit for for hours in a wheelchair, and basically cry in pain. I would go in and out of "sleep". Even though I kept asking for Gravol, they didn't give me any for three hours. Then ended up discharging me, because the blood work came back clean. I am still feeling like crap from the morphine. Got home, went straight to be and fell asleep. Well 15 mins later, I was in the bathroom puking my guts out. Ended up having a 3 hour bath, which makes me feel better when I am sick. Went to see my GP, since the hospital didn't know what was wrong with me. She ended up telling me right away, that my legs and other parts of my body were having spasms because my Vitamin D is extremely low. I have been on liquid Vitamin D for the past 3 weeks, but just not enough time to prevent the Charlie Horses. She also told me that I was dehydrated, and the hospital should have hooked me up to an IV. I will never take Morphine ever again, and I will definitely inform all future nurses and doctors that I have a bad reaction to Morphine. Drinking Gatorade, even low the sugar content is high, I need the Electrolytes! Hopefully my Vitamin D gets to where it's supposed to be soon.

Wow, so sorry you went through all of that.  Thankfully your GP figured it out.  Hoping your Vit D levels get to where they need to be soon.

Thank you so much!

Oh my goodness,  that sounds horrible and scary. I'm so sorry you went through that. Are you on vitamin injections now? Hope you are feeling better. 

It definitely was scary!!! Worst experience ever at any hospital! Well I have been on Vitamin D orally, I take it once a week in a glass of milk for 3 weeks now. Hopefully starts working soon, and I think it has, because I haven't had any spasms since this Sunday. Hope you are doing good!!!

I don't know if this will help with your situation at all but when I used to get these, I found that take a muscle relaxer would help.

I take vitamin D daily. It helps your calcium absorb. May people in northern climates have low vitamin D. I would take it daily from now on

Hope you are getting in lots of liquids and get hydrated again.

What relieves leg cramps for me is forcing my toes to turn up.  If I can't do it on my own I lay on the floor and press my toes against the wall until they are pointing at my head.  That relieves the cramp immediately.  Sometimes I pull my toes up with my hands.

I have a specific bottle of water in the frig and I use that to roll my foot on, this can relieve charley horses in my toes right up to my knees.  The cold and the stretch are the important things.  I admit sometimes I am almost crying doing this but it does work.

Give it a shot.

Laurie

Hmmm.. like a small bottled water you mean? I'll try anything, thank you! I end up walking the floors, chugging water, and occasionally take some potassium when this happens.