Charlie’s Horses

     Sunday Night: Sound asleep, peace, quite, calm and then in the flash of light here they come, between 2:01 am and 2.36 am, its, Charlie’s Horses.  That’s right even the best of us get these horribly painful, mind numbing, jaw dropping cramps, spasms, whatever you want to call them, they hurt.  Light lighting through a tree, hot knife through butter, they hit and they hit fast, these to the point my skin felt as if it were going to rip open, never have I had a Charley Horse that hurt this bad or lasted this long.  I come flying off the bed when the first one hit and that was the left hamstring, yelled so loud I woke up Trish and the dogs who must have thought Red Dawn (movie credit) was happening here in California. It got so bad I was bent over screaming into a pillow and at one point crying.  And just when I thought it could not get any worse it did (check the title it says “Horses”) and Charley brought his entire stable.  Throughout the night I had a total of eight (8) Charley Horses, from both feet, calves, shins, hamstrings and thighs, they missed nothing.  My wonderful, understanding and loving wife and yes my part-time caregiver jumped into the caregiver mode and broke out the heating pad, suggesting ice packs, massage (Oh He*l no) and other relief, I think at this point she was even scanning the web for ideas to throw out.  I ended up going with stretching (usual) and the heating pad, which seemed to relax the muscles and give them the ability to stretch out and relax.  This still went on for another 2-1/2 hrs. between all of them and then the follow up pain lasted into the day.

 Monday:  I looked into Charley Horse’s and the best information I could find was on (www.WebMD.com/pain-management/muscle-spasms-cramps-charley-horses) as of 1/29/2014, lists “Possible Causes of Muscle Cramps: Muscle cramps can have many possible causes. They include: – Poor blood circulation in the legs, Overexertion of the calf muscles while exercising, Insufficient stretching before exercise, Exercising in the heat, Muscle fatigue, Dehydration, Magnesium and/or potassium deficiency, Calcium deficiency in pregnant women, Malfunctioning nerves, which could be caused by a problem such as a spinal cord injury or pinched nerve in the neck or back, Muscle cramps can also occur as a side effect of some drugs.

Medications that can cause muscle cramps include: Lasix (furosemide), Microzide (hydrochlorothiazide), and other diuretics (“water pills”) used to remove fluid from the body Aricept (donepezil), used to treat Alzheimer’s disease Prostigmine (neostigmine), used for myasthenia gravis Procardia (nifedipine), a treatment for angina and high blood pressure Evista (raloxifene), an osteoporosis treatment Brethine (terbutaline), Proventil and Ventolin (albuterol), asthma medications Tasmar (tolcapone), a medication used to treat Parkinson’s disease Statin medications for cholesterol such as Crestor (rosuvastatin), Lescol (fluvastatin), Lipitor (atorvastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin), Pravachol (pravastatin), or Zocor (simvastatin) Treatment of a Muscle Spasm When muscle cramps occur: There are several things you can do to help ease them, they include massaging, stretching, or icing the muscle, warming the muscle, or taking a bath with Epsom salt. For a Charley horse in the calf or a cramp in the back of the thigh (hamstring), try putting your weight on the affected leg and bending your knee slightly, or sit or lie down with your leg out straight and pull the top of your foot toward your head. For a cramp in the front of the thigh (quadriceps), hold onto a chair to steady yourself and pull your foot back toward your buttock. To help reduce the risk of cramps in the future, try the following: – Eat more foods high in vitamins and magnesium and calcium. – Stay well hydrated. – Stretch properly before exercise. In most cases, self-care measures are sufficient for dealing with muscle cramps, which typically go away within minutes. But if you experience them frequently or for no apparent reason, you should speak to your doctor. They could signal a medical problem that requires treatment.”  

Now that the medical portion of this blog is over with, it is now the day after and Charlie showed up with his minions.  I’ve had four more of them, in no particular order. I have called the doctor’s advice nurse (Kaiser) to see what I can do and now need to wait 12-24 hrs. for a response.  Monday Night:  I wake up to three more, not anywhere near as bad as last nights.  At least I was able to let Trish and the boys sleep through them, I hope.  I repeated what worked the first night and used the heating pad and stretching.

      Tuesday:  Still have some of the residual pain form last nights spasms.   Today I’m taking mom to a follow up with her general practitioner (GP) to go over her hospital admittance two weeks ago.  Her appointment goes better than I thought until the end when she throws out a question about a Mammogram she had done the day before and which she didn’t tell anyone about, but that’s another story.  We head out to the car and after getting mom in, putting the wheelchair into the back I go to hop in (enter suspenseful pause here) I would like to say nothing happened but this was the worst of all the Charley Horse’s yet.  I lifted my right leg into the car and before it landed my leg felt as if someone was trying to over inflate it and jam a fire log where a number #2 pencil normally fits, I yelled (of course), about fell to the ground and right off the guy pulling out beside us stops and has his window down asking if he could help as did the driver sitting to the right of us.  When mom explained what was happening because I couldn’t even talk while trying to  concentrate on the expanding mass under me that at one time was my leg.  They both started throwing out suggestions (all mentioned in the list above).  Thank you kind strangers.   End of day two comes and Kaiser finally calls.  I explain what’s been going on and she suggest bananas, cantaloupe and avocados, she wants me in for a blood test on my potassium, magnesium and kidneys because the first two affect the third in a big way.  I was also told to increase my potassium by one pill.  Tuesday Night:  Well, their back again for another round running up and down my legs like their an a horse track with no end in sight.  Luckily they found the end, I only had four tonight, lasting 79 min. and residual pain throughout the day.

     Wednesday:  I go in first thing, second in line in fact and give my donation of O+ to the lab tech who I highly recommend, did not even feel the needle go in.  I must have the fastest race track time around because they just don’t want to leave, three more, minor ones but painful..  Usually it takes 4-6 hours and I can get results via my phones email, but of course today’s different I don’t receive my first email until 9:40 pm and its not the potassium results.  Now its waiting time.  Wednesday Night:  Another three Charley Horse’s all pretty bad, but I am glad I did not have to wake Trish or the boys, who actually moved into another bedroom because of me bouncing around the bed apparently.

Thursday:  I am awake (3:32 am) and so is Trish.  I come up out of  bed with a Charley Horse (CH) start trying to do everything I can think of to control it, heat, stretch, stand on your toes, etc., I just cant find the heating pad.  OK, so this is going to be the mother of all CH’s, it feels like my leg has expanded to double in size and that its going to blow open at any minute and just when I think I can deal with it, it gets even worse.  Trish get up after the first scream (of course) and is asking what she can do.  I ask for the heating pad and what should be a 20 second things feels like its taking forever and I remember thinking this and saying, “its not Trish, Its I’m in pain and it only feels like it taking forever.”   We get the heat on my leg and it still take 20 minutes to corral this one.  Even after the 20 minutes I have to keep pressure on my foot to keep it at bay, for another 59 minutes.  So I do what any  of you would do, I go into the office and start writing a blog post about it.  Alright the test results are in (4:56 am) and the sun is starting to come up. Go figure my potassium is low and everything else is fine.  I receive a call from my doctor, the amount of Lasix they had me on dehydrated my body and that’s whats causing the spasms.  STOP all edema medicines, eat minimum one banana a day, drink “LOTS” of Gatorade, go in Monday for labs and he will call me on Tuesday. 

       I guess it was a good thing mom’s doctor told her that Lasix can cause (1) spasms in the legs and (2) Hearing problems (ringing), WOW, in the 3-4 years my mom has been on Lasix and a second water pill none of the doctors we’ve seen or any pharmacy tech’s or pharmacist had ever mentioned that these things could happen.  Dehydration, major leg cramps, ringing all from a simple pill, each of these can cause other major issues if they happen. So why was this not mentioned?  What side effects do her other 18 medications have that we don’t know about?  After 21 years of my issues and another 6 since mom’s first stroke, I guess its time to sit down and read all of our medications side effects.  What were you not told and found out later that surprised you?  Please let me know by commenting on this post.  I look forward to reading your reply’s.

 Thanks for reading my blogs.

   – Richard