Muscle "locking" at night

Last night I woke up and my left foot had "locked" up into a spasm/cramp. My other leg was also a bit "nerve-y." Nothing really new about that. I had discussed it with an internal medicine doctor a couple of years ago, and he said it's usually a positional thing (stretching the foot the "wrong," way, etc.). I then started putting a pillow at the foot end of the bed so I couldn't stretch too far in my sleep, and it generally helped.

I think I know the cause of last night's episode. I wore a pair of shoes I usually don't wear in the grocery store. Had no problem while I was shopping, but I sure paid for it overnight! Lesson learned.

Generally, if I have a regular muscle cramp, it will ease quite fast. But these nasty spasms take a while. I have to get out of bed, hobble to the couch, and try to massage them away. Not easy to do, as the muscle gets tight and doesn't want to release; it slides back where it shouldn't. I do take a muscle relaxer as well as magnesium before bed. I also try to drink lots of water and take calcium. Bananas are sometimes helpful. And I do stretches every day, and have specific ones for my feet.

Just wondering if anyone else deals with this occasionally? It's annoying and messes up my sleep. And, ouch!!

Hi, Luvs and Lynwood. Boy, do I remember those days! I’d have a foot spasm so that my foot was pointing like a ballerina and I could hardly straighten it out. I’d pull the front of my foot back towards my leg to try to stretch the muscle out. I started taking more calcium and that helped quite a bit. I take two maximum strength Citracal tablets twice a day…one before breakfast and one before dinner. I choose Citracal because it’s more easily absorbed.

Then I started the muscle relaxer Methocarbamol 13 years ago and the spasms stopped. I take very little of it…one 500 mg tablet before breakfast and one before dinner.

So this is what helped me. Those spasms are very, very painful!

Sherrine