repoman

I work on my feet, as a banquet server. This week has been very busy and at the same time early this week I got back on the cal-mag habit (2 pills/day each having 250 mg Ca and Mg) and also today I bought potassium pills each having 90 mg and had 6 today.

Right now my calves are spasming but it doesn't feel painful at all. So, my question is whether it is possible that the spasms are a good thing. Are they letting the muscles slowly let go of the tension instead of locking up and making it easier to pull a muscle? If they are from agonistic electrolytes returning to a healthy level won't they stop after a few days?

I probably am hypothesizing too much, but spasms are interesting and that they are happening of course means I shouldn't be working so hard now. But the work is feast or famine and I have to take all I can now, because in a couple of weeks it will be fairly slow.

Edited to add:

Holy shit! My calf is spasming like an oldfashioned morse code telegraph machine! This rarely happens at all, this is either really good or really bad. I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow morning to see how I feel.

Misso

I don't think it's very good. From what I always understood of it, spasms are the result of nerves gone mad, I never heard of it being to release tension. I might be wrong though.

repoman

the reason I was asking if it were possible that spasms were a way to relese tension were the times I have had a tens unit on a sore muscle at my doctor's office. It would make the muscle spasm (twitch rather) away like mad just like it was doing last night. It always felt better after that.

Toto

The tens unit seems to work by overstimulating your muscle so it has no choice but to relax. (My impression - I don't know the physiological mechanism.)

You might need to drink more water.

You also might want to get some real medical advice. This doesn't sound normal.

You need to take care because the heart is a muscle, and anything happening to your calf muscle could also happen to your heart muscle, if the potassium pills are causing this.

JGL53

repo, I'm a pharmacist who actually thinks that a pill may not be the cure for every ailment known to the human race.

I don't think the cal/mag tabs are going be your 'cure', so to speak, though there is no harm in continuing them - I'd just be sure to take them with food, and take no more than you are at present.

Checking with a physician is good advice - so I second that.

One thing might be to check your shoes and the support they are (or are not) providing. E.g., I myself have $300 insets that I use in my $30 sneakers to correct my pronation, which had really screwed up my knees for years. I would no more leave the house without them than I would go out without my eye glasses. (
You might have flat feet or some other foot problem that could put undo stress on your calves (just a thought.)

Happy Wonderer

I'd not take the potassium until you talk to your physician. If there is any chance that you have kidney disease it could be a problem. (I am in no way a doctor but had a grandmother with heart problems and kidney disease so I recall the low potassium diet.)

hw

repoman

JGL53, Actually last night at work I used a cheap pair of shoes because I was trying to let my good pair with Pedag Holiday inserts have a rest. Now I think I will get a second pair of similar shoes and used the same inserts in them.

It is very rare for me to have anything but the slightest of spasms. Honestly, right now my legs feel much, much less stiff than normal for the large amount of work I've done this week, but at the same time they feel as tired (as in joints etc...) for the level of work. Isn't it likely that it is because of the calcium and and potassium? To be fair, I have been forcing myself to drink water when I didn't want it today.

hmmm, just looked through the 1992 Merck Manual, it is a good dose of common sense in its section about sports injuries. Basically, it says to not to work to strenuoulsy on the same muscles groups with less than 48 hours rest. This is something I am not doing at all of course.

The thing that really pisses me off, is that I've been noticing that I work with lots more intenstiy than almost all of the other servers and that might just get me seriously injured. I literally have been speedwalking (which it really hard on the calves) and even jogging to get all the service done at a high quality. In the last few shifts I have seen just how little of the quality service many others do and they're not being brought to account for it at all.

Well, fuck that! No more speed walking, no more extreme levels of service, I'll have to get my satisfaction from other ways outside of work. Sorry for the rant, it just sucks having to face limits like this.