Do you have leg cramps or toe cramps since you started keto?

Oh my God — why am I waking up in the night with leg cramps?  Is it keto?

It is SORT OF KETO.   It is how you are doing keto and don’t worry, leg cramps and toe cramps can be eliminated by doing keto correctly and adjusting a few things in your plan.

If you have any sort of chronic condition (diabetes, high blood pressure, heart condition, skin issues, cancer (even cancer in remission) – you need to talk to your doctor about any changes in cramps.  This is pretty common knowledge for most diabetics and people with high blood pressure but I have added cancer as when my Mom’s cancer came back for the last time, foot pain was one of the symptoms and chemo made it a lot worse so be sure to raise this issue with your doctor if you have ANY medical condition.  And you should have consulted them when you first started keto so if you haven’t, you need to do that too.

Leg cramps that are truly caused by keto and not other conditions usually come from an electrolyte imbalance.  This is easily corrected by taking a supplement.   For most people, an electrolyte drink once a day is going to do the trick and it will also keep you nicely hydrated.   If you cramps are coming at night only, you may also want to add a magnesium lotion as it will calm both your leg cramps and help you sleep.  I suggest the drink and lotion over pills as you will have a hard time getting the balance right with pills and magnesium supplements will give you “thunder pants” if you are not careful.   So for most people there is no need to add a ton of pills, just drink one serving of electrolyte supplement and call it a day.

There is a bit of a “pickle juice” cult in the keto world and they will tell you that works but most pickle juice only supplies sodium so it will not be a good answer for most people and it is extremely hard on your teeth and for people with sensitive stomachs or conditions like GERD or ulcer, it can be harmful.  So consume large amounts of pickle juice at your own risk.  It is really only something that is meant to help with sea sickness or conditions where you want to bring that sodium up a bit so that you can feel well enough to do something else.

So here are a couple of great electrolyte supplements to get your cramps under control.   These will also help with some of the other flu symptoms like headaches and brain fog and again if you have a chronic condition – consult your doctor)  Ultima is my go-to and I love the grape and the blue raspberry and orange and lemon are both mild flavors if you don’t like overly in your face flavors.   JUNP is a new brand and very similar in ingredients but it also has a ton of B12 and Vitamin C so if you are doing something like zipfizz or a multivitamin, this might be a good alternative as it has a lot of those vitamins as well.

 

 

For the lotion I have the Life-flo lotion which has a vanilla smell but sometimes you don’t want to smell like a yummy cookie so I also like the ancient minerals one.  These also come in sprays but be careful, some people complain that the sprays can sting sensitive and freshly shaved skin.  I have crazy sensitive skin (like I have to use baby soap and baby laundry soap) and the Life-Flo does not sting my legs even if I shave right before but the Ancient minerals I am more careful with so just consider that if you have sensitive skin or shave every day.