Leg aches in pregnancy

[coastgirl]

I am 22+3 and my legs ache all the time - sometimes it's a dull ache, sometimes proper cramps, but it's very annoying. I asked my midwife about them today and she basically said it's par for the course and as I'm quite small my body will have harder work adapting to the extra weight.

I teach, so I am on my feet quite often, even when I take it fairly easy in lessons I have to go up and down stairs a lot and spend a lot of my time going from one building to another (work at the biggest, most spread-out school ever!). I have switched to flat shoes but that doesn't make much difference.

I eat at least one banana every day - I also read that sports drinks can help because they have the minerals etc in but I can't find any without sweeteners, which I always try to avoid. Any other tips that might help? I can't get to any yoga classes or anything like that due to them all being during work hours.

I was told that tonic water (quinine) can help with cramp, also to make sure I get plenty of dairy in my diet, and of course bananas. The other thing I would recommend is going to see a physio or osteopath. I started having problems with sciatica and cramp at around 21 weeks and I've been having treatment every couple of weeks since then (I'm now 34 weeks), and it's made a huge difference. You should be able to get referred for physio by your midwife, or if you don't mind paying you can get treatment quicker privately (I pay my osteopath £40 per consultation and it's been worth it as she found various other problems with my spine, shoulders, etc and has been able to give me acupuncture, manipulation, exercises to do at home and diet advice).

I had this too - am also a teacher. I eat a banana everyday, and was advised to have lots of calcium and sardines (but not overboard obviously) - has worked wonders....

I had this too - upped the calcium which really helped.

I posted on a similar thread the other week - I was getting terrible spasms in my calves while I slept, and it was painful to walk for a few days afterwards.

After researching I upped my water intake and calcium too - an extra yoghurt and a Horlicks before bed. Not the nicest drink in the world, but drinkable. Not had a single cramp or leg ache since.

Calcium it is then! Actually I have stopped having cereal for breakfast so maybe a glass of milk might be a good idea. And I'll get some babybels or something for my mid-morning hunger pangs.

I just had a Creme Egg - there's calcium in those, right?

I was drinking loads of tonic water for this, but then saw that you shouldn't actually drink it in pregnancy.

Get your iron levels checked...can be a result of having low iron.

You won't get your next routine bloods done again until 28 weeks, so quite a while....I would go to your GP and try to get a blood test done sooner.

Schmee, my midwife suggested I drink it for the quinine last week!

It's advised against in some countries because quinine can potentially cause birth defects such as blindness and deafness, and high levels of quinine have been used to induce abortions. Also apparently withdrawal symptoms can be seen in babies where the mother has had over a litre of tonic water a day.

That said, in moderate levels I'm sure it's absolutely fine and totally nothing to worry about. And in this country it's not advised against.

Other minerals as well as calcium help too - I've been taking a magnesium and calcium supplement to prevent leg cramps and it works brilliantly, the drawback is it tastes pretty gross and I'm now having to up my dose to at least 2x a day (35 weeks pg). But worth it for not getting cramp in the night. The one I take is called Calma-C from www.highernature.co.uk, it comes in a powder which you make up with boiling water and then add orange squashherbal tea etc. You can also get cal/mag tablets from Holland & Barret, or there's a version of Floradix called Saludynam that has magnesium and calcium (also tastes gross).