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Submitted by Lis
- Melatonin works to induce sleep. This sometimes helps you sleep through cramps. It is fairly safe and non-addictive.
- Benadryl brand antihistimine (and the generic brands, too) can induce deep enough sleep to over-ride the symptoms. Many people are able to do this, and the next best drug is the clonezapam, it's also a narcotic (highly addictive).
- Move your body. Get walking or leg exercise during the day. If you have an attack at night, get up and move a round a bit, then try again to sleep. Experiment with exercise times, as it takes a different routine with different timing (in relation to bedtime) for each person who suffers from this disorder.
- Lose weight if you need to. Attacks are fewer and less severe when we weigh less.
- For some people, heat helps. Try a hot water bottle, bed socks, a heating pad or a hot bath before bed.
- Do as much as you can to be very sleepy before you go to bed. Do as much as you can to fall asleep quickly. The longer it takes to fall asleep, the more likely it is that you'll be woken by the cramping. So, take hot baths or showers to relax you.
- Develop good "sleep hygiene," which means do not use your bed to do anything but sleep in (no TV, reading, exercising, radio, etc...). Go to bed on a rigid schedule. Develop a bedtime routine that you can take with you wherever you go. If you cannot sleep, get out of bed and do something quietly until you are sleepy again. This trains your body to go to sleep as soon as you are in bed, and not wait for something interesting to happen :).
- Learn meditation and relaxation skills. They help.
- Check with a dietitian to see what you can do with your diet to lessen leg cramps (get lots of potassium, magnesium, calcium, etc.).
- Get educated! Educate your Physician.
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