Another Symptoms of Diabetes – muscles cramps

There two types of muscles self movement (automatic).

• First is ‘twitch’ – twitch is a short but rapid movement by muscles
• Second is ‘cramp’ – muscles cramp happened when too much lactic acid presence in the muscles resulting the muscles jammed.

This happened to me a few times. At first I thought it is normal. Once a while having cramps on the calf during normal activities. Then it started to attack at night which was never happen before. It started to cramp and I could not bear the pains because all the calf muscles started to cramped alternately. Like a major twitching. I cannot even move. Even slight movement will start the major twitching. The whole calf muscles moving just like an aliens moving inside the flesh. It is moving from tendons joining the knee until downwards. Even the toe fingers having the same. I do not know what to do. The luck was that I have a set of cupping devices at home. So I performed the dry cupping method almost to all spots I can place the cups on. Then the same thing happened to another leg. I was so busy that night. Fighting the pain and with the help of my wife I managed to control the cramp/twitching. After one hour, the muscles back to normal. (The dry cupping will force the tissues to disengaged and loosing the sliding movement of the tissues) But that night I slept with my legs tied and pinned with bolsters to reduce movement.

How cramps happened

Blood should carry enough oxygen to every cells and tissues and organs. When too much glucose stuck to it, the absorption of oxygen from the lung is minimized significantly. Meant that not enough oxygen flowing to all the cells. Our body burned the glucose to produce energy. This oxygen is used during the aerobic (in presence of oxygen) metabolism. But when insufficient of oxygen, our body will go to anaerobic phase. This is where lactic acid is produced. When too much lactic acid accumulated inside the cells, it will stop the activities. This will caused the fatigue and this is jamming the muscles and this is what we know as cramp. Normally cramp could happen to lower part of body because it is further from the heart. Most oxygen is already taken during the circulation. Those further down cells, tissues and organ will become oxygen hungry states.

It is common to see athletes suffering calf cramped during practices or tournament. This happened because usage of oxygen is more than lung can supply. Oxygen hungry cells will go to anaerobic metabolism to produce more energy. Resulting accumulation of lactic acid.