Few things are worse than lying awake in bed because your legs hurt. If leg cramps are keeping you awake and disrupting your rest, consulting a specialist to determine and address the cause is your best course of action.
At Progressive Spine & Sports Medicine in Ramsey, New Jersey, our team of specialists work with you to determine the cause of your leg cramps and resolve the issues, so you can get a good night’s sleep.
You can have leg cramps because of overactivity, a strained muscle or ligament, or even sitting too long. However, persistent leg cramps at night usually point to chronic venous insufficiency. The likelihood of this being the problem goes up if you’re over 50, also experience swelling in your legs, and/or see varicose veins.
If you work a job that requires sitting or standing for long hours, wear extremely tight clothing, or have certain health conditions like diabetes, kidney issues, or cardiovascular disease, blood pumped down into your legs might not be making it back up in a timely manner.
Leg cramps can hurt anywhere on your leg, but the backs of the calves usually hurt the worst and the most persistently. The worst kind of leg cramp is what most call a charley horse, when the muscle contracts so tightly it forms a bump or “knot” on the back of the lower leg.
However, cramps caused by circulation issues can also feel more like pain shooting down the legs, which may be accompanied by tingling or numbness. Unlike a charley horse, you won’t be able to massage this pain away.
Radiofrequency ablation helps restore proper blood flow by diverting the flow from damaged veins to healthy ones. Your veins have small valves that keep blood going one way. If the valve breaks down due to high blood pressure, blood leaks backward and pools behind the vein, and it’s even harder to get it flowing at the correct rate again.
Your doctor accomplishes ablation by numbing the area, sliding a tiny tube into a damaged vein, and using an electrical current from a radio wave to heat up the vein, causing its walls to collapse. Your blood flow is rerouted to a nearby healthy vein, alleviating the pain from leg cramps.
We perform radiofrequency ablation as an outpatient procedure in our office and can treat multiple veins in one visit. It can take time for the destroyed vein tissue to completely exit your system, but your legs should be less painful shortly after your visit.
Interested in learning more about radiofrequency ablation for leg cramps? Call 201-201-0443, or request an appointment online.
