Supplements help Leg Cramps

I’m 66 years old and had leg cramps when I was a little kid and into my 20s and 30s. I especially got them when I was stressed out (by an alcoholic father or later, after I got away from my parents, by studying long hours.) I found out about 17 years ago that indeed I did have polio, as was suspected, when I was a baby. (An EMG was done by a post-polio doctor who told me that nothing but polio did the kind of damage I showed.)

I had horrible leg cramps in the 1970s until I found a chiropractor who evaluated every nutrient in my body. I had bad deficiencies in many nutrients. All that changed under his regimen, including my health, which returned. Once he got me on enough vitamin C, E, and a proper balance (for me) of magnesium and potassium, I didn’t have leg cramps for many years.

Gradually, I got them again, and I again went to a similar doctor who determined that my food was not going through the oxidation process and that I needed four times the amount of vitamin C I had been getting. I now take 4,000 units a day (1/2 in bioflavanoids) of C. I also take 800 units of Vitamin E and about 500 of magnesium and 250 of potassium; I also take calcium and liquid mineral drops, among many other nutrients. If I don’t get all of my C, E and the magnesium and potassium, I will wake up in the night with leg cramps. But as long as I don’t slack off for even a night, I’m fine. I do Jazzercise three or four times I week, and I do flamenco.

My polio was when I was very young, before I could walk. I had a very turned in foot as a child, but I trained myself not to pigeon toed after I started flamenco.

I know that at least in my case, the cramps can be totally controlled by supplements. (I also eat a very healthful diet and am in pretty good shape-or at least have great cholesterol and so on. I do have some bone loss, but was low in vitamin D so now take 4,000 units of it.)

mdolan@ktech.com