Leg Cramps

On and off I have leg cramps.

They're called nocturnal leg cramps (NLC) and
A) they're common in primary care.
B) they're rarely reported to doctors, they
C) cause severe pain and sleep disturbance. And
D) they persist even after you get up, they kind of disable you for a full day because one of your legs is not strong enough to walk on for up to 15 hours.

No, these NLCs are not triggered by walking; they're triggered by the intake of high-potassium foods like bananas, dates, and or raisins.

However,

The FIRST issue is, there is very little or no information out there on the Internet, so we cannot research your own condition. In other words, there isn't any website, or online book, out there that would enable us to decide that -- based on our symptoms -- we have hyperkalemia (too much potassium) or hypokalemia (too little potassium).

Further, I don't know if there is any other way for me to look for information, if I want to shed more light on this subject. I even read the relevant chapters of the Merck Manual Professional Edition, and not even that professional edition of that book was any help to me on the subject of hyperkalemia and hypokalemia.

The SECOND issue is that, on the Internet, just about everyone pushes high-potassium fruits and vegetables.
In other words the vast majority of the Internet is trying to convince you that you have hypokalemia,
and the message is that, everyone, including you, should buy and eat many more sweet fruits...
Why? Probably because this is the narrative of today's mainstream media.

The THIRD issue is, there are articles that try to convince us that our leg cramps are due to hypomagnesemia (low magnesium levels) and the oral bioavailability of magnesium. However magnesium therapy did fail. View "Effect of magnesium therapy on nocturnal leg cramps: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials with meta-analysis using simulations", by Paul Seboa, e al.,

I don't know about you or everyone else,
but I'm not going to listen to the mainstream media,
I'm going to stop buying bananas, dates and raisins.
They're very sweet, but I'm happier without my leg cramps. Period.
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