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Tag: Irritable bowel syndrome

  • What is Cramp and How to Treat It

    What is Cramp and How to Treat It

    What is Cramp?

    Cramp is a sudden painful tightening of the muscles. it causes period pain and labor pains, angina, irritable bowel syndrome, tension headaches, and repetitive strain injury. But here we’ll discuss calf cramp. It mostly happens in the calf muscles but it can happen and affect any part of the leg, including your thigh and feet.

    Reasons of Cramp:

    • Cramp in the lower leg is commoner in older people. Among its triggers are: being cold, dehydration, alcohol, sweating, a poor diet, insufficient UV-light exposure and not warming up and cooling down properly when exercising.
    • During a Cramp, muscles suddenly contract which causes the pain in your leg. this is known as a spasm, and you can’t control the influenced muscles.
    • Exposure to cold temperatures, especially to cold water.
    • Other medical conditions, such as blood flow problems, kidney illness and thyroid disease
    • Standing on a solid and hard surface for a long period of time or Putting your legs in unbalanced positions while you rest also cause Cramp
    • Not having enough calcium, potassium, and other minerals in your blood.

    Treatment:

    Some people swear by putting a cork or magnet beneath the mattress although the origin and usefulness of this remedy are unclear.

    Food and Drink: Eat plenty of foods rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, vitamin C and E and essential fatty acids. Magnesium is highly suggested for treatment of muscle cramps, especially for pregnant women.

    Eat oil fish (Omega 3) three times a week and benefit from the calcium in the bones by choosing canned fish with soft edible bones, or marinating fish in vinegar for 48 hours.

    Food Supplements:

    • Calcium and Magnesium
    • Vitamin B3
    • Vitamin D
    • Fish Oil

    Exercise: Stretch the cramped muscle to ease it. Help prevent cramps by doing similar stretches three times daily. You might even rub or massage the muscle while or after you stretch, and perhaps apply a heating pad to the area after stretching. Walk around for a while if you are facing leg cramps and that’s the best thing you can do.

    Massage and Heat: Rub the muscle for two minutes, and then keep it warm. Hot Soak also helps in treating cramp. You can try dry heat like heating pad.

    Herbal Remedies: Put a thermos flask of cramp bark (guilder rose) tea by your bed. to ease cramp lay a hot compress made with the tea.

  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome & Treat

    Irritable Bowel Syndrome & Treat

    What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome ?

    One person in three occasionally has an “irritable” bowel. This means that they have some combination of stomach ache (usually eased by emptying the bowels or passing gas); constipation, diarrhea (especially in the early morning), or alternating diarrhea and constipation; mucus in the faces; a feeling that the bowels are never empty; and gas are bloating for hours after eating. Diarrhea, constipation, and pain partly result from poor coordination of muscle contractions of the bowel wall which prevents food passing through smoothly; pain also results from an unusual sensitivity of the bowel nerves to stretching.

    One in five people with an irritable bowel has frequent attacks and is said to have the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from IBS. Their bowels react adversely to one or more of certain triggers, such as stress, gastroenteritis, smoking, antibiotics, certain foods, changing hormone levels, excessive exercise and pelvic surgery.

    The three types of IBS have rather unfortunate names. “Spastic colon” causes all the above symptoms. “Functional diarrhea” particularly causes diarrhea with an urgent desire to open the bowels. “Primary foregut motility disorder” (also known as the pain/bloat/gas type of IBS) causes right-sided stomach ache, bad bloating and gas.

    People with IBS are more prone to headaches, tiredness and depression. They may also sometimes have pain in the back or thighs, heavy or painful periods, pain during sex and a frequent or urgent need to pass water.

    How to Treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome

    Take regular whole-body exercise to reduce your stress level. Moving your body also encourages good digestion by “massaging” your intestines.

    Food and Drink: Counteract indigestion and avoid foods that upset you (such as dairy foods, starches or alcohol). If you suspect food sensitivity, go on a food-elimination diet. Avoid added bran and cut down on coffee, tea and cola.

    Stress management: Choose and practice effective stress-management strategies. Some people find massage with relaxation- inducing essential oils, meditation or yoga exercise useful. Breathing exercise and muscle relaxation can help. And incorporating and Alexander technique into your movements may ease the nervous tension that often accompanies IBS.

    Herbal remedies: Help relax your intestines by drinking peppermint, chamomile or ginger tea after eating.

    Flower remedies: the process of choosing appropriate Batch flower remedies helps you identify any difficult feeling and find ways of dealing with them.

    Hydrotherapy: Take a daily hot sits bath to ease painful spasms.