Foot cramps in early morning.

I was getting leg and foot cramps in my right foot (I had an infection a few years ago and my right big toe first bone was removed.) The cramp would start in the evening and by bed time be very painful. When it was really bad, I would take two 650 Tylenol Arthritis strength tabs. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't (seem to depend on whether it was the first night in a series, second night was 50-50, and third night of Tylenol was a waste of time and effort. One doctor suggested I start wearing compression socks. (I have been told this before but I have had problems wearing getting them on.) But I tried them again--got good advice on how to put them on from Barbara MC Connect--and they go on a lot easier and now I wear them almost every day. Within two weeks, the foot cramps disappeared. My daughter explained that as we get older our blood vessels tend to flatten and it messes up the flow. Compression socks restores the roundness to the vessels. The socks I am now wearing are from Duluth Trading Co. and are the everyday work sock, compression 15-20 mg pressure.

The secret to putting on and taking off the compression socks is to fold the top down to just above the heel. Start with the "shorter sock" and get it on your foot with some of the folded upper past your heel. Then get the heel and toe of the sock on your foot and get the heel of the sock on your heel with all of the upper above your heel. Lastly pull the top of the sock up to just below your knee. To reverse the process, pull top top down and as much past your heel as possible. The hard part is getting the rest of the douletop past your heel. Takes me about three minutes to put one sock on and about 1.5 minutes to get it off.