Q. I get horrible toe and feet cramps, mostly during the day but sometimes at night. My toes take on a twisted life of their own. Walking it off doesn’t help.
Last night my toes and feet were cramping badly in the early evening. I took calcium but it did not help. The spasms and cramps went on for hours.
Then I remembered the soap cure. I put a small bar of soap in each sock, stretched out on the couch and achieved instant relief. I am a believer!
A. Many other readers have reported similar relief for muscle cramps with soap. Some people do as you did, while others put it under the bottom bed sheet near where the feet will be resting.
Soap in Bed
Steve P said:
“I passed the info about the bar of soap to my wife who suffered terribly with night time leg cramps. When she used the bar of soap the cramps miraculously abated. She also uses it for her hands.
“I asked if she had passed the information to her friends and got this response. ‘What do people do when they see a UFO? They typically hide the information because people would think they’re nuts.’ This is a perfect example! REALITY WITHOUT REASON!”
Many folks, especially health professionals, have surmised that the soap works through a placebo effect. We have heard from some people who have deliberately tried to challenge that assumption. FFS chimed in:
“I had RLS [restless legs syndrome] for years. Ivory soap between the sheets actually works. My wife put the soap in our bed without telling me, and I haven’t had a sleepless night since. This relief has gone on for about a year now.”
Lump-Free Relief
Other folks object to the lump that a big bar of soap makes in the bed, as Gerry does:
“Leg cramps are enough of a problem for me that I tried to figure out something to do to deal with them when they occur. I have found that if I bend my toes as far up as I can, that this relieves the cramp almost instantly. I also gain relief by rubbing very firmly up my calf, from ankle to knee. The rubbing is effective, but stretching my toes is much quicker relief for me.
“My grandson also experienced leg cramps. When I pushed down on his toes, putting them as much to 90 degrees to his foot as possible, he too felt instant relief of the cramp pain.
“Perhaps the bar of soap might PREVENT the cramps-but if I can continue to get instant, non-pharmaceutical relief from stretching and pushing on my toes, I’ll continue to favor the lump-free sleep!”
We are always in favor of instant non-drug relief and think that stretching is great. But for those who don’t find it helpful and who would like to prevent leg, foot or toe cramps when they climb into bed, we have developed People’s Pharmacy Bed Soap. It is a large flat lavender-scented bar that provides the same amount of soap as a standard bath bar, but is thin so it does not make a disturbing lump in the bed.
For those who prefer to keep soap in their socks, we offer People’s Pharmacy Leg Soap. This tea olive-scented soap is already in small pieces that slip easily into socks and won’t make it uncomfortable to sleep or even to walk with the soap in place.
