Cramping My Style
I have leg cramps. I know the last thing you want to hear about is the medical problems of some two-bit humorist.
Sometimes my calf cramps into a knot at night, and the pain becomes unbearable. My hands also cramp, along with my fingers. Sometimes, it’s my thigh. Keep reading this column; it’s about to get funnier. I promise.
I was tempted to go online for advice. AI also seemed like a good option, assuming that AI stood for Arthritis Information.
By pure chance, I was downtown the other day to see my accountant about taxes. While in the elevator, I saw an old friend. “Hey, Dick, how ya doin’?”“Joel, I don’t like to complain, but at night I get these terrible…”
“Don’t tell me… leg cramps. I used to get them too. Here’s what I recommend: Take vitamin E three times a day. It’s like a miracle.”.
I’ve never trusted the Internet for health information, but I am always eager to take advice in an elevator. To be certain, I called my doctor to ask for his opinion. He told me that vitamin E was not good for me because of an interaction with another medication I am taking for my cholesterol. Then he asked me exactly where I had gotten this faulty data. I told him the 14th floor of OneAmerica Tower. “That’s a really stupid place to get medical advice,” he told me. “You couldn’t wait another minute to get to Skyline Club? At least you’d have a good dinner before a bad night’s sleep.”
I went back to see my accountant later that week with some more forms. On the same elevator, I bumped into another old buddy—“old” being the key word here again. “Hey, Dick, word is out you are having leg cramps.”
“Wow, word sure travels up and down fast in this building. Well, what do you think? I’m always open to a second-floor opinion. Or a second, second-floor opinion.”
“My dad had leg cramps, then he started drinking a gin and tonic every night for 30 years before he went to bed—and he never had cramps again.”
“What did the trick? The gin or the tonic?”
“He didn’t care? It worked.”
I did some googling and found that the gin might help you forget your pain, but it was clearly the quinine in the tonic that really eased the cramps. For the next two weeks, I drank a quart of tonic before bed. It had little effect on the problem, so now I’m willing to at least consider the therapeutic benefit of gin.
Over the course of a month, I asked several friends for recommendations. Here are some of the remedies suggested: zinc, magnesium, Vitamin E, quinine, biofeedback, cherry extract, folic acid, potassium, turmeric, and of course, Tylenol
I am not going to take any of this advice, nor should you, but I have noticed lately that my legs tend to cramp at night after vigorous exercise on the exercise bike or after playing more than an hour of pickleball. I’m no doctor, but I am prescribing myself a complete lack of physical activity for the next six months. And a shot of gin before going to bed.
I’d take it with tonic water, but I don’t believe everything I hear in elevators.
I did try one suggestion. It’s not on the list above. Wait till next week to hear about it.