Tripple Charlie

It seems I learn something new nearly every day. Some good, some bad, some, despite being new, boring.

On Sunday night I discovered something about lower legs. Between the knee and the ankle there are at least three very distinct different muscles, holding things together and facilitating movement in three very different ways. There is one extending down the outer side of the calf. It seems to be long and thin. Up high behind the knee, there is a short lumpy one, and another in the back, mid-calf.

While I can't say for sure these are the only ones, I can say for sure they are distinct, and they pull in different ways. I know, because they all cramped at once on me.

My usual attack on charlie horses is two-fold: stretching it out, in the short term, and upping my calcium intake for the longer term. The second was simple. The first, not so much. Every way I moved to relieve one muscle, another one cramped harder. There was no way to become stable. Rubbing didn't help. Eventually, I was able to, from a sitting position, extend the heel way back behind me. This didn't eliminate the cramping, but it did exert some stretch on all three muscles to the point where I could bear it. Well, so long as I didn't move even a twitch. Then it was back to where it started.

Finally, and just because I very much needed to, I was able to stand and walk to the bathroom. That actually seemed to ease the cramping out. Or perhaps the calcium I'd sent Paul to fetch had started working. (I wasn't feeling up to a double-blind study right then: try everything and hope something works.)

I'm keeping the calcium levels high for now. They're still sore muscles, reminding me that they're ready to attack again, given provocation. But for now it's just a reminder.

Whew!