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How do you manage leg pain with FA?
To reduce leg pain and muscle spasms, I take baclofen at nighttime recommended by my neurologist. I take a small dose, but it has been helping me combined with my pain medicine, Gabapentin (also recommended by my neurologist). Both of these medicines help me sleep throughout the night.
Do you have any strategies for managing FA-related leg pain?
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16 Replies
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Hi Christina,
What I do for my daughter every night before bed is, massage the legs and feet down through the toes. This pulls the blood circulation down to the toes, restores the normal skin color from the purple skin color and coldness; for her it reduces or alleviates the pain along with taking the Gabapentin. The normal skin color has been maintained ever since beginning the massages months ago, and her doctor has asked us what we have been doing to achieve this. Hope this helps. 😉
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I love this technique and am definitely going to have my husband try!
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I didn’t know what to do when I first started experiencing foot pain a few months ago. I had no idea where it was coming from. My regular doctor started me on Baclofen 5 mg at night but it didn’t do much for me so we upped it to 10 mg and my pain just went away. Some days I take it morning and night but mostly just before bed and I think it helps me sleep too.
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Dave, I’m glad you found what helps you!
I would take baclofen in the morning, but I am afraid it will make me “groggy”, so I only take it at night before bed.
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Yeah Christina I get. It does affect everyone a little differently. Maybe you can try it on a day when you are safe not doing much physical activity or cutting it in half.
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I actually tried this morning because I forgot to take it last night, so we’ll see how it goes!
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Did it make you groggy?
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Nope! It made me feel much better!
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I’m so glad it helped you.
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Hello, first I would like to say up front that I did not believe in or subscribe to anything regarding the use of hemp products, however we started using hemp salve each night for pain and / or cramps in her legs and using CBD oil under my daughter’s tongue twice a day for restless legs. This combination has worked wonders for her.
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I don’t know enough about cbd but I hear good things. My friend is always trying to get me to use THC and CBD. He gave me CBD cream to rub on my feet and it helped for a while but it’s not cheap and I used it up too fast so I didn’t feel like it was a long term solution.
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You are right it is not cheap but it works for us, the hemp salve we use has menthol in it to make it soak into the muscles faster and you don’t have to use as much. If it’s not for you I understand, I really hope you can find something that works for you very soon. Please share if you do.
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Rusty I appreciate your comment. I need to learn more about CBD. I’m open to anything that will help.
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Thank you for sharing, Rusty! I’m glad it’s helping your daughter and I’m sure it will help others too!
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My wife used to get really bad leg pain…dr had her on muscle relaxers , gab. , and percocet ….
Not saying it will work for everyone but….
I did some research and study. I started her on wild lettuce . That I picked out of our yard. It’s a thistle “weed” most people try to get rid of !! Dried it out and started her on it in her drinks. Took about a week and a half and all pain was gone and only thing she takes now is the muscle relaxer to help with the twitching ……that was over 3 years ago and no pain.
Even after she took a nasty spill down a hill with her 250 pound power wheelchair that bruised her left side…shoulder,.elbow, collar bone , nose(glasses got her), ribs, hip , knee , ankle. No broken bones at least. She took one dose of the wild lettuce the first day and pain was gone for the first 2 days….she still hurts after 6 days but hasn’t needed to take anything else.
Again…I’m not saying it will work for everyone….
Anything to reduce the amount of drugs is a massive plus.
There are other “weeds” that grow in your yard or along the roadside or wooded areas that are super helpful and healthy for you …like dandelions that you can use the whole plant. I love dandelion tea and the yellow flowers fried in pancake batter is one of our favorite snack foods that is exceptionally good for you( a super food)….just do research on identification , preparation and possible interactions etc. before trying any “weed”/plant… obviously !!
What brought us to doing things like this is that we live in our camper and making trips back home every month for her to get drug tested in order to get her percocet made it real difficult to stray far from home ….now we just go pretty much wherever we want when we want. Mostly staying in national forests for free.
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Clester,
I neverr heard of “wild lettuce” and its benefits, so thank you for sharing knowledge about it. I also agree on reducing the drugs/medicine is better. I am glad you and your wife found a remedy that helps her!
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