Knee pain at night with low carb?

[Changednamealready]

I have knee issues any way. Last week i was low carb my usual diet, protein, fats and veg with no pasta, bread, cereals.

I had poor sleep and oddly, painful knees at night. This has happened on another occasion I went low carb for a short period. I don’t think it’s due to an increase in purines as my diet often has plenty of fish, chicken etc in it.

Any ideas?

This isn’t an anti carb post, parents have been low carb for a week or so and it’s eliminated their reflux. Was interested to see the effects on me...

[BIWI]

Was it your first week of low carbing, or have you been low carbing for some time?

[Changednamealready]

Not for long I’ve dipped in and out of doing it. This was only one week in but it has happened when I’ve fasted for some reason or been low carbing on other occasions. I’ve not done low carving for a long period yet, were you thinking some sort of adjustment phase? I was trying to work out why and what was going on. It’s a definite ache rather than pain. Not gout.... I don’t think anyway

[BIWI]

It could be an electrolyte imbalance - possibly magnesium? If you're low carbing and drinking lots of water, then you need to make sure you're getting sodium, magnesium and potassium. For sodium, cook with salt and add it to your food. You could also try a hot drink made from Oxo/Marmite or Bovril. Good food sources of the others are salmon, avocado, spinach and full fat natural yoghurt. You could also buy an electrolyte supplement, such as Zero, by High5 - from their website, or from places like Holland & Barrett and Evans Cycles.

[Changednamealready]

Hi BIWI thank you for getting back to me and helping me to ascertain what the issues may be!

With lower carb during the day I felt great although always felt something was missing (great big pile of bread perhaps???). I have issues with my knees anyway always have and more recently I injured them.

The pain/ache I felt during low carb was only at night, and I have felt the times I have fasted its had a very low kcal intake or been Very physically cold. I wonder if it’s a Low level arthritis but can’t work out why it would be aggravated by electrolytes, carb reduction. It’s signif I ant enough to wake me from sleep and neurogenic resolves and one night I had some warm milk, slice of seeded bread and banana and it did go but took time.

I’m wondering whether sticking to very low carb during the day and having a small bowl of porridge at night to see if it alleviates it. I will for sure look for the electrolytes too.

Can I check BIWI if you’ve seen many people have mood improvement with low carb? That was an unrelated question but quite a huge motivation for me.

[Changednamealready]

Any recommendations on specific yoghurt?

[BIWI]

I'm not a medic, so please don't take my advice as gospel!

However, I know that people can suffer from nighttime cramps occasionally, which can be linked to the electrolyte imbalance. Why not try an electrolyte supplement first before you start adding in more carbs? Then you'll find out if that is the issue.

Mood improvement - yes, a lot of people do report that. However if you Google, you'll also find lots of people who claim the opposite! Only way of finding out if it will be the same for you is to try.

Re yoghurt, the key thing is to buy full fat - Greek yoghurt (not Greek style) is the best, and most of the supermarkets will sell one. I buy Sainsbury's Taste The Difference, or M&S if I'm there. Aldi also sell a good one. I used to buy. Fage (Total brand) but they now only sell a 5% fat one, whereas all the others I've listed are 10% fat.

[Changednamealready]

No of course BIWI ref medical qualifications 😂 it’s good to hear about theories as to why this may be and not sure the doctor would have any idea why, they’ll probably just think I’m cracker.

Thinking about kefir, but love Greek yoghurts did that’s not an issue and I nice recommendation thank you.