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| Categories: Diabetes in everyday life |
| Diabetes in everyday life | |
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How are blood sugar, minerals in the diet, consecutive symptoms of diabetes and nightly calf cramps connected with each other?
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Although we cannot answer this question sufficiently, I want to try to outline the subject and make you think about the issue by quoting some interesting insights.
Some of us remember to have suffered regular nightly calf cramps during the period before the outbreak of diabetes. Few people’s cramps are so strong that these convulsions are even considered a symptom for a possible type 1 diabetes. But what could be the reason for the diabetics’ calf cramps? On the one hand, they could be – as it is also the case in metabolically normal people – the consequence of a magnesium deficiency. On the other hand, they could be the expression of a nerve disease as a sequel of diabetes.
Magnesium deficiency and potassium depletion
Magnesium is responsible for the stabilisation of the nerve function. Unfortunately, the diabetics’ magnesium level is often low because a blood sugar level above the renal threshold between 8.9 and 10 mmol/l (160-180 mg/dl) increases the excretion of magnesium (and of potassium) in the urine. This is also the reason why calf cramps occur shortly before the outbreak of diabetes when the blood sugar level has already raised. The significance of potassium is similar to the significance of magnesium: Since potassium is also responsible for the nerve function, a potassium depletion increases the probability of calf cramps. The stronger transpiration during the summer months and after the sauna causes a major loss of minerals. Especially in these cases you should drink large quantities of mineral water.
Nerve diseases
A poorly regulated diabetes can also cause calf cramps. In this case the nerve damages appear in the area from the toes down. Mostly they occur when the body is in a relaxed position.
How can the cramps be treated?
In many cases a proper mineral balance can be built up and kept with the help of a healthy diet. If that is not the case you should, as already mentioned, drink mineral water with more than 50 mg magnesium per litre and decide in favour of mineral rich food such as crispbread, bananas and potatoes. If you still suffer cramps, you can buy mineral preparations in granulated form or as effervescent tablets. Before buying them, ask your dialectologist's advice since many products should not be consumed by persons with kidney and heart problems as well as high blood pressure. If taking these preparations, for example the effervescent tablets, does not produce the results you wished for, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurologie (German Society for Neurology) recommends the substance quinine sulphate. However, you have to consult your doctor before you start taking it.
source: Dr. Martin Allwang, Was tun wenn nachts die Wade krampft?. In: Diabetiker Ratgeber, 10/2003, S.38 – 40
Translated by Stefanie Wagner ( Stefanie Wagner ) |
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