cramps crap

It is when I am busy with important things that I tend to focus on unimportant things. Notice the totally random and emotionally imbalanced post of "song I don't get sick of". Anyways, this time, it seems unimportant but it turns out to be actually important.

I have this believe that once you turn 21, you are classified under "adult" and thus all health problems related to "adults" will start to apply to you. A colleague recently revealed a shocking health problem and said that his doctor said that there is no such thing as illness for the elderly anymore. Everyone of any age can get sicknesses which we used to think happens only to the veterans. Which confirms my believe. Better watch those hips, people.

I recently experienced leg cramps at night. One day it is the left leg. The next day it is the right. Then, back to the left. These are really painful cramps in the calves and I had to wake up and massage my calves and keep them warm and all that. What really bothers me is not the excruciating pain. It is the waking up. What if I was dreaming of Takeshi? You'll never know.

Anyways, I did some googling and chose www.patient.co.uk and found two causes which could apply to me.

1) Over-exertion of muscles
2) Dehydration

Have I over-exerted myself? Erm. I know I have been walking a lot lately but it has been this way for the past few weeks. Why only now? Have I been so pampered by the buggy rides that when I attempted to walk that 400m last week, my legs decided to throw a tantrum?

About dehydration... yeah, I don't drink 8 glasses of water a day. Who does?

It seems many things can cause this problem. Some of the rather extreme causes which probably does not apply to me are:

- Lead poisoning
- Under-active thyroid gland
- A list of medication I cannot pronounce
- Excess alcohol (would have died of allergy by then)
- Rare disorder of nerves
- Pregnancy (in the later stage somemore)
- Cirrhosis of the liver (terrible, this one)
- Sarcoidosis (tsk tsk)


Anyways, I remembered that my dad once told me that cramps can be caused by insufficient salt (sodium) or bananas (potassium). It is also stated so on the webby. So I added an extra pinch of salt into my daily breakfast omelette but have decided that maybe I shouldn't risk my kidneys this way. As for bananas, I couldn't find any small ones (pisang emas) and big ones are not sweet and just too much to finish. I don't particularly favour bananas anyways.


So I'm left with 2 choices which are to keep hydrated and to do some stretching to prevent these cramps. A recommended exercise from the website is as follows:

-erm.....-

Three times a day! 7 am, 3pm, 11pm. This totally clash with my daily schedule. Like, I sleep at 9pm these days, dude. And 3pm means during office hour. It IS a rather awkward position, I must say. Erm... better not. I'll do double shot once I get home. :)



*note to Gary - Any medical advice?