Charley horse
| Charley horse | |
|---|---|
| Specialty | Rheumatology  |
Charley horse is a popular colloquial term in Canada and the United States for painful spasms or cramps in the leg muscles caused by a punch or knee to the thigh, typically lasting anywhere from a few seconds to about a day. It can also refer to a bruise on an arm or leg and a bruising of the quadriceps muscle of the anterior or lateral thigh, or contusion of the femur, that commonly results in a haematoma and sometimes several weeks of pain and disability. In this latter sense, such an injury is known as dead leg.[1] In Australia it is also known as a corked thigh or corky.[2] It often occurs in contact sports, such as football when an athlete suffers a knee (blunt trauma) to the lateral quadriceps causing a haematoma or temporary paresis and antalgic gait as a result of pain. Another term, jolly horse, is used to describe simple painful muscle cramps in the leg or foot, especially those that follow strenuous exercise.
The term can also be used to refer to cramps in the foot muscles. These muscle cramps can have many possible causes directly resulting from high or low pH or substrate concentrations in the blood, including hormonal imbalances, low levels of magnesium, potassium or calcium, dehydration,[3] side effects of medication, or, more seriously, diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and neuropathy.[4] They are also a common complaint during pregnancy.[5]
Treatment
Relief is usually given by either massaging or stretching the foot, ankle or knee in the opposite direction of the spasm.
Colloquial advice suggests that dietary deficiency of potassium, found richly in bananas and many vegetables,[6] is a common cause of these spasms.
In other languages
- Arabic: شد عضلي
- France: crampe (cramp) or if the muscle is torn - claquage.
- Dutch: ijsbeentje ("ice leg").
- Spain: calambre.
- Portugal: paralítica (roughly "paralyzer") and cãimbra (cramp).
- Brazil: tostão, paulistinha or cãimbra (cramp).
- German: Muskelkrampf ("muscle cramp") or more colloquially as a Pferdekuss ("horse's kiss") if there is a bruise or Muskelkater ("muscle hangover")[7] without a bruise.
- southern Italy: morso del ciuco ("donkey bite").
- northwestern Italy: vecchia ("old woman") or dura ("hard one" or "tough one").
- central Italy: water buffalo.
- Norway: lårhøne ("thigh hen"), though in Norwegian only as a result of damage as in sports.
- Finland: puujalka ("wooden leg").
- Denmark: trælår ("wooden thigh", both referring to how the thigh feels hard, almost like wood.
- Estonia: puukas ("a woody").
- Japan: komuragaeri (こむら返り) ("calf cramp").
- Israel: regel etz ("wooden leg").
- Guam and the Mariana Islands: chaca ("rat") in the Chamorro language.
- Hindi: bainta[citation needed].
- Telugu: timmiri.
- Romania: cârcel.
Notes
- ^ What is a dead leg?, bbc.co.uk.
- ^ corked thigh, mydr.com.au
- ^ "Charley horse". PubMed Health.
- ^ Miller TM, Layzer RB (2005). "Muscle cramps". Muscle Nerve. 32 (4): 431–42. doi:10.1002/mus.20341. PMID 15902691.
- ^ Young GL, Jewell D (2002). Henderson, Sonja (ed.). "Interventions for leg cramps in pregnancy". Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online) (1): CD000121. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000121. PMID 11869565.
- ^ "potassium".
- ^ "Duden - Muskelkater - Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition".
References
- Shulman, D. Whence "Charley Horse"?. American Speech, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 100–104.
- Tonbridge, St. V. "Charley Horse" Again. American Speech, Vol. 25, No. 1. (Feb., 1950), p. 70.
- Woolf, H B. Mencken as Etymologist: Charley Horse and Lobster Trick. American Speech, Vol. 48, No. 3/4. (Autumn - Winter, 1973), pp. 229–238.
External links
- Overview of symptoms at WebMD
- What works? Research summarized at PubMed Health.