The Hindu Business Line : Pain-free calves

If your calves hurt so badly that you cannot sleep, consult your doctor. Ask him if you have ‘intermittent claudification’. It’s a condition that must be taken care of. It means you have insufficient blood circulation in your legs. Do not ignore it or dismiss it. If your doctor advises you to consult a cardiologist, do so immediately. Simply put: when there’s insufficient blood circulation in the heart, it can lead to a heart attack; when there̵ 7;s insufficient blood circulation in the head, it can lead to a stroke; when there’s insufficient blood circulation in the arms and legs, it can lead to intermittent claudification. Please understand its import — intermittent claudification is a peripheral vascular disease, as is a heart attack a cardiovascular disease. Start taking healing measures immediately:

Say no to nicotine

Yes, quit smoking right away. Stop chewing tobacco too. Look closely at your daily paan (betel leaf) stuffing or any supari you may be eating lest it contains nicotine. To understand the urgency of quitting, look at what happens:

Smoking cigarettes increases carbon monoxide and reduces oxygen in the leg-muscles already starved of oxygen.

Nicotine contracts arteries which impedes blood flow. In time this damages precious arteries and causes blood clots which can lead to gangrene in the legs.

Energise with exercise

Walk every day for an hour. Pause only when the pain gets moderately severe. Rest until it dissipates, then resume walking. If you are an indoors person, cycle with ankle weights of half kg for an hour. Whether walking or cycling, start with 20-30 minutes and build up to an hour over the weeks.

March in place 50 times, lifting your thighs until they are parallel to the floor, swinging your arms like a marching soldier.

Jog in place 50 times, lifting your heels until they kick your bottom, keeping your elbows steady and bent in a runner’s position.

Stand on a step on the balls of your feet. Rise to your toes, then come down so as to press the heels below the step-level until you feel your calves tensing and stretching. Repeat 20 times.

Balance on your right foot with the left knee bent slightly. Lift your left leg up, bend knee, tense calf muscle by pulling foot up, then push foot down three times. Now, rotate your left ankle three times in each direction. Repeat this entire process with your right leg.

These exercises must be done lifelong, so don’t take an off from them even during a vacation.

Vascularise with water-pressure

With a hand-shower, direct cold water on each calf until you feel a loosening, expansion or relief. Do not rub the calves dry, pat them dry. Rubbing warms the calves. The therapeutic principle here: When the skin warms on its own, the blood circulation increases. A reaction is always greater than action. This process is called vascular training through hydrotherapy. The cool water pressure shifts the blood to the skin and relieves the pain; the body also produces a histamine-like substance which dilates the blood vessels through increasing the blood flow in the capillaries. Blood flow enhanced this way lasts for a longer period than in rubbing balm or taking a hot water bottle.

Shed excess weight

Remember, the feet are already starved of normal blood supply. Putting on weight literally tortures them. Go for a low-calorie, low-fat, high-fibre diet.

Breakfast on fresh fruits, tea with cow milk and no sugar. Any fruit is fine — orange, sweet lime, apple, pineapple, papaya, water/musk melon, pear, plum, cherry, pomegranate, strawberry, raspberry, custard apple. Stick to whole fruits — they are fibre- and vitamin-rich. Fibre is absent in fruit juice.

For lunch, have salad, whole-wheat roti without ghee, low-fat curd, pulses, boiled vegetables or vegetables cooked in oil-free curries. Opt for green vegetables — white pumpkin, cabbage, tinda, spinach, parwal, French beans, cauliflower, ladies fingers, cucumber. In your salad, add tomatoes, carrots, beetroots, onions, etc. Have an apple instead of a sweet for dessert. Follow this formula for dinner as well.

Meditate

Sit comfortably, neck supported. Close your eyes. Relax your feet… ankles… calves. Then, visualise healing light entering your toes… feet… ankles… calves. Inhale deeply saying silently, “Peace”; exhale saying, “Joy.” Do this breathing exercise 15 times, all the while concentrating on your calves. Feel the tension, the pain dissolve from your calves. Breathe five more times. Open your eyes.

Finally, check your blood pressure and have a lipid-profile blood test done. Often people with claudification are hypertensive and have high cholesterol. These conditions must be controlled. And keep exercising regularly — it’s your best doctor.

The writer is co-author of the book ‘Fitness for Life’.

More Stories on : Health | Fitness First

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Eye for the tiger

Decoding her secret mission