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mainewildrose posted an update Thursday, Jul 24, 2014, 2:50pm EDT, 9 years, 10 months ago
OK.. I know this sounds absolutely silly, but, it works ! I was told this solution for leg cramps about 3 years ago and laughed out loud ! Someone said to put a bar of soap in the bed between the sheets. ! Now that is dumb, I thought. One night the cramps were so bad I stood in my bathroom with my toes curled up and the calves of my legs in big knots and I cried from the pain. I looked down and spotted the bar of soap... “Irish Spring.”.. And, said to myself, “Ok.. I’m game for anything!’.. So I put the bar of soap in the bed..crawled back in.. and slept the rest of the night ! I kept the bar of soap there and a few weeks later, told the story to one of my friends, who laughed at me, just as I had laughed at the person who told me about it. So , I decided to do a bit of research.. And there may very well be some truth to this solution. One of the first things us “older folks” are told to do is to cut out the salt from out diets. Well, go get a bar of soap.. ( not a fancy oatmeal or rose petal type of soap) Get Irish Spring.. Dial, etc. and read the ingredients. There will be 4-5 different kinds of chlorides listed.. That is SALT ! I see that several people have mentioned potassium , magnesium, calcium, etc.. Those are all various kinds of SALT ! Potassium Chloride... Magnesium chloride.. calcium chloride ! The bar of soap in the bed leaves a residue of the salts in it on the sheets or even on your legs as you move around during the night and that salt seeps through the skin and into the muscles of the legs. NO CRAMPS ! Have you ever watched a sporting event on TV and suddenly a player is taken out because he has developed cramps?.. He’s taken into the locker room, given either drinks with salt.. ( Gator Ade) or an IV and in a short period of time, he’s back in the game. His body was depleted of salt and as soon as its replenished, the player is OK. In the 3 years or so since I put that first bar of soap in my bed, I’ve only had nighttime leg cramps a couple of times, and that’s usually because I’ve accidently kicked the bar of soap out of the bed or forgotten to put it back in the bed after changing the sheets. Oh, I was watching that TV show “ Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” about 6 months ago and the question was. ...
“ Which of these items should one put in the bed to prevent getting leg cramps?”.. 4 items were listed and one of them was .. A Bar of Soap... which was the correct answer !Give it a try !.. It’s cheap and it works !.. Just check the ingredients and make sure there are lots of different chlorides listed..
( Try not to laugh too hard or loudly... my kids think it’s foolish, but then, they haven’t reached the age of nightime leg cramps or had salt restricted from their diets yet ! ) and please don’t think I’m some kind of idiot !... It really does work.)