Swim Cramps: Medication

So after just too much trouble with leg cramps when swimming, I went to see my doctor on Tuesday. It turns out that ther’s good news and bad news on cramp:

Good News: It’s surprisingly common, though most people get it in bed rather than when swimming.

Bad News: No-one really knows what causes it.

But all is not lost, because there is medication that generally helps the problem: Quinine Sulphate (that’s quinine sulfate to my Mac’s spell checker). When he told me this, I joked that surely, I could take it in a much more pleasant format than a tablet:

Could he write me a prescription for gin & tonic?

No, apparently the size of the measure for this to deliver an effective dose would have to be QUITE LARGE. There’s an interesting story related to this, involving Clarissa Dixon-Wright (or to give her full name, Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson-Wright). She’s a celebrity chef with a colourful past - she was the youngest woman ever called to the Bar (i.e. the youngest ever female Barrister) at 21, who on inheriting £2.5M in the mid 1970’s lost all ambition, and went on a 14-year bender, involving vast amounts of vodka, but especially gin & tonic.

She’s been in recovery for 21 years, but the drink destroyed her adrenal gland, so she literally cannot lose weight. The funny thing is that when her doctor diagnosed this, he asked her if she’d ever had Malaria, as one of the potential side-effects of an overdose of malaria tablets is severe damage to the adrenal gland.

“A-Ha!”, she said, “The quinine in gin and tonic!”

“No, no”, assured her doctor, “My dear young lady, you would have to drink a very great deal of tonic for over a very long period of time in order to get this condition”.

To which she replied, “Well how about six pints a day for twelve years?”

The doctor had to admit, “Yeah, that would do it”.

So it was the tonic that did for her in the end, not the booze. I’m sure there’s some sort of lesson in this. While I think about that, I’ll stick to the prescription version, taken at the dose my doctor instructs. My initial prescription is for a four-week course and we’ll see how that affects my leg cramp.

Workout:

• Type: Swim
• Date: 04/03/2008
• Total Time: 00:45:00.00
• Distance: 1,593.25 m
• Average Pace: 2:48.19/100m

Filed under: Illness, Injury, NE31 Tri Club, Swim