National Kidney Foundation Forums

For those of you with more experience than I have..are SEVERE leg cramps, especially at night, part of these fun and games of kidney failure, or could they be from something else? What causes them? Tips for getting rid of them?

Elizabeth-

If I may ask, what is your medical status at this time? Do you have a transplant or are you on dialysis? From previous experiences you can develop leg cramps for different reasons.

Lauren

Lauren,
I am right between stage 3 and stage 4, developed the kidney disease as a complication from e-coli, but otherwise i am very healthy. i do not have a transplant nor am I on dialysis. As for as diet goes, at the moment my neph said to avoid phosphorous products, but he has not put any other restrictions on me. I don't like meat, so I eat little of that anyway and I have never used salt. I would appreciate any advice you can give. Hope you are feeling well today.
Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth,

I was 9 months old when my parents found out about my kidney problem. At that time, it was call Hemolitic Uremic Syndrom. Nowdays it's believe it was e-coli. For my symptoms my parents knew it was not genetic (I have 2 older siblings). From what my parents told me about my symptoms, I didn't had cramps due to e-colin. I really don't know about stages, I know about how much it's the creatinine. Are you taking any medicine for cholesterol? There is one (which doesn't come it's name right now) who give cramps or pain in the legs. Almost all on my family had taken this medication and did/do had/ve leg pain or cramps. I believe low potasium is another reason that gives cramps.

Hope it help somewhat,

Gbrlandr

Elizabeth,
Well, I can tell you leg cramps are either due to low potassium or dehydration. Possibly a little of both. If you are still urinating a lot and not eating food with potassium you most likely are getting rid of more potassium than you are restoring. Although, too much potassium is deadly and can cause a heart attack-especially if you don't urinate and have no way of getting rid of it other than dialysis. I hope you have mentioned these cramps to your doctor so he can order bloodwork and see what your potassium level is. Once you know the results you can come up with a plan to include certain foods in your diet that will hopefully correct this problem for you. Hopefully that helps.
Lauren

Hi Elizabeth

When I was on peritoneal home dialysis I would get nightly leg cramps. My nephrologist suggested quinine might help. That is the tonic used in gin and tonic. I skipped the gin part -- don't need to stress the body any more. Quinine is a muscle relaxant and, in stronger doses, was a treatment for malaria.

Ask your doctor about it, though. After transplant, I found out that it really accentuates the effects of the drugs that suppress white cells. I don't drink it any more, but I also don't have the cramps any more.

Good luck. I hope you can find a way to ease the cramps.

Annette

Hello i'm stage 4 and I get a lot of leg cramps my potassium level is about 4.9-5.0 which is border line high. Quinine helps a little but it isn't avail. any more FDA took off the market. My nephrologist said there is nothing else so I live with them.

can someone tell me what foods contain phosphorous

Tonic water has quinine in it.

I am having severe leg cramps almost every night. I am not a transplant patient and my Kidney disease was under control with the use of cyclosporin. My doctor decided to take me off the medication and my protein loss jumped from 600 to over 15,000. Since then I am on 200mg per day of cyclosporin and it seems that my leg cramps started about then. What can i do about the leg cramps? Also Ive been getting aweful headaches around the same time. Devon

you may laugh at these suggestions, but having suffered for many years with leg cramps, these two things have helped me. I tie a bar of dove soap in one of my husbands socks and tuck it under my bottom sheet of my bed, and for some unexplained reason it seems to help. Also a litte bit of regular yellow mustard seems to help. As long as I am not suffering from heartburn, I just pop open a mustard packet and squeeze some on my tongue then swallow it. Crazy sounding I know, but it does seem to usually do the trick. I have end stage renal disease and these little "fixers" seem to help me. Good Luck!

I have either minimal change disease or fsgs and have had severe leg cramps at night recently despite the fact that I am keeping up my potassium level. I do generally drink more at night than during the days as I am more thirsty. Any suggestions on what I can do prevent the leg cramps?

Oh wow, I thought I was the only one who got these cramps. I was diagnosed a year ago with stage 4-5 renal disease. I have had these cramps since middle school. I am almost 22 so i have had them for at least eight years. I will try the mustard idea and tonic idea too. Thank you for the suggestions. Any others would be nice.

Hi - I'm also between 3-4 kidney failure, which they believe came from either 1)colonoscopy prep or 2)kidney angioplasty that I had for other reasons. I do NOT have high blood pressure or diabetes. However, as related to the leg cramps, my doctor prescribed requip - 50 mg and I have no problems since. I'm still a "newbie" when it comes to kidney failure and have lots to learn. I'm told it never gets better. I am at 39% function which my doctor says I can live forever and probably die of something else. He said it's not till I get down to 10% that we worry about dialysis. However, my last blood work showed I'm at 48% function so that's a good sign. I will check this site often to learn more. Thank you. Catherine

Oh the dreadful leg cramps.

So many things can trigger them a some people have mentioned here.

Dehydration, low potassium, low calcium, meds.

If you're already drinking enough, ask your Dr if tonic water can be useful (that's what my aunt's Dr recommended for her and she's in stage 3).
Also check what the side affects on your meds. Here's a great site to do just that:
http://www.rxlist.com/drugs/alpha_a.htm
I was taking a cholesterol med and it gave me terrible stomach cramps. I felt like I had done 100 situps (not that I know what that's like, LOL).
I was switched to a new med and the cramping stopped.

Take care!!

In my case I have had kidney stones more then one occasion and occasional leg cramps so server they require a trip to the ER. Those cramps last well up to 1/2 hour at a time in the thighs mainly but also calfs and lower abdomen. Potassium, calcium and magnesium levels are all normal. Burning with urination is present which I assume synonymous with stone fragments. No blood indicated in the urine, but nitrate levels elevated. Cipro at times presecribed and diazapan for the cramps. Occasional rash in the groin or abdomen with these symptoms as well as headache dry mouth, weakness, blurred vision, the sensation of fever with no temperature, chills and profuse sweating but not night sweats, occasional vomiting. various tests all seem to come back normal. I have as a child had some adrenal malfunction and have also had one episode of embyonal cancer in my youth. I suspect some issue with the adrenals but am unsuccessful at convincing doctors within the local health system to listen to what I am saying. Rather I'm told use monostat for urinary burning or cortizone for rashes . ER tests for blood clots in legs indicate no clots. Is there/ are there specific tests for adrenal malfunction related to kidney disorders . I am not diabetic nor have I had any transplants all labs seem normal thus far std scan indicates no std's blood sugar is normal. Any suggestions as to how I can proceed to convince my doctors to perform specific tests that may indicate the causality would be appreciated. often these conditions are debilitating.

any help appreciated Eva

Eva,

you might have to seek a second opinion.

question for you? are you given cipro for leg cramps or for UTI?
Cipro is an antibiotic and must be taken for the full course it's prescribed for (7-14 days). If you only take it on occasion, it's not going to do any good, and it might make your body resistant to antibiotics/infections.

Just a thought :)

Have you tried Quellitall? Works great for my cramps.

OMG thank you thank you THANK YOU to the person who recommended Quellitall. I am COMPLETELY cramp free during dialysis!! Even Quinine didn't work this well.

Thanks for pointing me to Quellitall. My nephrologist hadn't heard of it (guess it's relatively new) but looked into it and told me to give it a try. I have had NO cramps since starting to use it and no longer dread my appointments.