I get excruciating pain in my legs in bed at night, please help! Dr Zoe answers your health questions
HAPPY New Year! Are you making any resolutions?
The NHS has some great free resources to help you stick to changes that will improve your health and wellbeing.
Visit the NHS Live Well website (nhs.uk/live-well) for information on better sleep, diet, exercise, mental health and more.
For example, you can access over 100 healthy recipes on the NHS Healthier Families website, and follow home workouts with the NHS Fitness Studio.
On the NHS Better Health website (nhs.uk/better-health) you will find various apps to help you lose weight (NHS Weight Loss Plan), quit smoking (NHS Quit Smoking), cut back on alcohol (Drink-Free Days) and exercise (Couch to 5K and Active 10).
If you are aged 40 to 74, you are entitled to a free NHS Health Check every five years to spot signs of developing kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia or heart disease.
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Download the NHS Health Check app to find ways to lower these health risks.
I hope these resources give you the motivation you are looking for to make healthy changes in 2024. Good luck!
Here is a selection of what readers have asked me this week.
Q: I AM an 80-year-old man and my general health is not too bad.
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I had major surgery last year for an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
But my main concern is that when I go to bed, if I bend either of my legs, they seize and the pain is excruciating.
Sometimes I have to get my wife to straighten my leg.
It started about five years ago.
At that time they checked my circulation and said it was fine.
I suggested to a doctor it was cramp which he said it wasn’t, but he didn’t say what it was.
A: Firstly, I’d like to know where the “seizing” and the pain is.
Is the pain in the muscles of the leg, and do they suddenly tighten causing pain which is only alleviated by stretching and massaging the leg?
Does there tend to be some residual soreness in the muscles afterwards?
If so, then this does sound very much like leg cramps, which are common, usually harmless, but can be unpleasant.
They most commonly affect people at night, and while resting too.
I answered a question about how to manage this recently in my column, so if you search online you will be sure to find it.
The other potential cause would be if you have a joint that was “locking”.
The knee joint can lock, meaning you’re unable to straighten the knee.
It can be caused by damage to cartilage tissue in the joint, loose fragments of bone or arthritis.
There’s also something called a pseudo-locked knee, which is where the knee isn’t actually mechanically locked, but it occurs when knee pain is so intense that the leg muscles temporarily spasm, and the knee briefly locks up.
This spasm acts as a warning to the knee joint so that it cannot be moved and cause any more damage.
If this is more in line with what you are experiencing you may need a referral to a musculoskeletal specialist.
Q: I HAVE just been reading in The Sun about the rise in whooping cough cases.
I had it when I was four months old and I am now 60.
Could I get it again and, if so, am I vulnerable?
A: This is a great question and you are right, there are rising numbers of cases around at the moment.
Pertussis – to give it the proper medical name – is a bacterial infection that affects people’s lungs.
It usually begins with some mild, cold-like sy- mptoms that develop over one to two weeks into coughing fits, which can be severe and last for several weeks.
The Chinese refer to whooping cough as the 100-day cough and this is very infectious.
An effective vaccination is offered to children in the UK, but immunity, from vaccination and the infection, does wane over decades.
Therefore, it is possible you can catch it more than once.
In your case, as you were so young when you had it, you may be susceptible to catching it again if you come into close contact with someone who is contagious.
Severe complications will occur mostly in infants under the age of six months.
Providing you have no underlying health conditions, you are not likely to be severely ill with it should you be unlucky enough to be infected.
If someone has whooping cough for more than three weeks, they are no longer deemed to be contagious, even if they still have symptoms.
The whooping cough vaccine is only offered to babies and children as part of their routine vaccine schedule and pregnant women.
If you think you have it, please make an appointment with your GP as soon as possible.
Got a question for Dr Zoe?
Email her at [email protected]
Q: I WAS diagnosed with an overactive thyroid in March.
But I didn’t get my medication until last month and I have put weight on.
I was 68kg, now I’m 71.8kg.
I haven’t changed my eating habits.
Now I’m on carbimazole 5mg.
I’m getting depressed as I feel so fat.
Will my weight drop back down? I’m 55.
A: One of the common symptoms of an untreated overactive thyroid is in fact weight loss.
The thyroid gland produces thyroid hormones that affect how your metabolism works.
An overactive gland speeds up the person’s metabolism, meaning more calories are burnt than normal.
Another common symptom is an increased appetite to make up for the additional calories you have lost.
I am wondering if you have very gradually increased calories since your thyroid gland first became overactive, which may have been a long time before you were diagnosed in March.
Now you are on treatment, any additional calories you had got used to eating would now be excess to requirements.
This may well not be the case at all, as there are numerous causes of unplanned weight gain.
Another cause would be if the dose of carbimazole was too high.
But you are on a very low dose and I would expect that your thyroid hormone levels will be monitored to check this – usually every six weeks or so until the dose is right.
My advice would be to ask for a check earlier than six weeks because you are having potential side effects.
Left untreated, an overactive thyroid can cause many other symptoms, such as tremor, anxiety, fatigue, weakness, disturbed sleep, poor concentration, palpitations, nausea, vomiting and sweating and can also cause damage to the eyes.
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Do let me know if, on reflection, you think there have been some long-term gradual changes to your eating habits.
If so, support from a dietician would be helpful for you.
Tip of the week
WITH 2024 here and resolutions in full swing, why not think about volunteering?
Not only is it great for whoever you choose to help, but there are personal benefits to helping other people.
Studies have found that volunteers have lower stress levels and are less likely to experience poor mental health.
So while you might be making health resolutions with yourself in mind, thinking of others will help you too.