I am in stage 3b and have started getting woken up feeling like my legs are in spasm. The pain starts to ease after getting up and moving about for a while. I am otherwise a fit and healthy person. Could this be to do with my CKD?
Due to have my bloods done in a fortnight.
Tia, Sprite1
Consider advising your Doctor. I was diagnosed at CKD 3b and had similar experience, and was found to have neuropathy. In my case it might be partially due to CKD, but also other factors. Prescribed medicine and Physical Therapy has helped.
Hi Sprite,
It could be and it may not be. How's that for an answer? We cannot diagnose here. Leg cramps can be part of CKD, but not everyone has the same symptoms. It could be from lack of water, or medication, or over use, or.... many things. It can be just from how you move first thing in the am. I too can send my leg off on a cramp if I stretch wrong.
Make some notes and see if there is a correlation to activity and amount of water you consume. Also, when you see the doc, tell them about it. Leg cramps can be something completely unrelated such as circulation issues.
I am Stage 4 CKD with a Creatinine level of 4.2 and an eGFR of 16.
I have woken up in severe leg cramps. The kidneys aren't expelling lactic acid as fast as it develops. The lactic acid then gets stored in the large muscle groups and can cause cramps and/or spasms.
Increase your water intake dramatically. Stop drinking dark sodas and stick to clear sodas. I drink Sprite Zero and Diet 7up. I drink at least a half gallon of water every day.
Before you go to bed, take a wooden baking rolling pen and roll it over your legs front and back. Do it as hard as you can bear. What you are doing is massaging the muscles and releasing the lactic acid.
Be sure and stretch in the morning when you get up and before you go to bed. Make it a point to go get a professional deep tissue massage every 2 weeks. This releases the lactic acid in addition to releasing the stress that builds up in your shoulders and neck.
It seems that a lot of people have their own special remedy that works for them. Mine is sodium bicarbonate tablets. I started with that to balance my ph and a side effect was the relief of leg cramps. I was quite acidic to start. Good luck with what works for you.
Hi Oldearkie,
Your answer was fascinating to me. At one point, before anyone was worrying about CKD for me, I was on a drug called Enbrel. After 6 years, I started having HORRIBLE cramps, and not just in my legs. I had them in my gut ( and we called them fat cramps) I had them in my neck. But the worse were leg cramps that would shoot me out of bed. I also had them in my thighs which is you have ever experienced is like medieval torture. They slowly stopped in frequency when I stopped the Enbrel drug, but never completely went away.... until I went on allopurinol and then later, sodium citrate.
No one ever correlated the high uric acid I had which is a result of Psoriatic Arthritis. My acid levels were off the charts at 11 and 9. I was passing uric acid stones like a goose. Once I went on allopurinol, the stones stopped and eventually the cramps.
I never correlated the cramps to the uric acid. hmmmmm, thanks for the eye opener.
My uric acid was high also and my PD put me on 100mg of allopurinol and it has helped my uric acid levels.
I to am stage 3. And my leg bothers me at night also. It is just one leg. And it occurs only from the knee down. I have had every scan, xray, even an MRI on that area and they all tell me (doctors) everything is normal. I get so mad I want to yell "then come see me at night in bed when many times it is so bad I have to get up". It almost immediately stops hurting when I stand. During the day it never bothers me, except if I sit for more than hour at a time in a sofa or soft chair. If I sit on a hard chair, it never happens. Finally I was sent to a neurologist. He took one look at my scans/xray and said "here is your problem". It isn't the CKD, it isn't something in your system, it is your back. There are discs between the vertebrae in your spin. These discs wear down. How fast they wear down is dependent on your activity (construction worker vs desk job). Between my bottom two vertebrae one disc is almost totally gone. So depending on my position it is probably effecting nerves that go to the bottom right leg. The cure?? Tylenol before bed each night, or if I will be sitting on something soft for long period. AND a knee pillow (a small pillow contoured to fit between your thighs at night to keep legs apart. The pillow helps tremendously. I get the occasionaly leg problem (once or twice a week) but far less severe and very briefly. Will this work for you? Who knows. But the pillow was only $11 on Amazon and might be worth a try.
We can't diagnose what your problem is, but can only speak from our own experiences. I got leg and foot cramps before my transplant and now after. For me, I found it was due to be dehydrated and needed to drink more water.
Make sure you let your doctor know about your leg cramps. Your issue could be due to meds or other factors.
Good luck
I feel like my leg cramps were from the build of Uric Acid....Lemons help neutralize Uric Acid....I eat about half a lemon a day and get very few leg cramps
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38 y/o female, GFR 61.. very worried and confused 
