Muscle Cramps In Dialysis Treated By Vitamin E

muscle cramp

photo Credit:happeningfish

Cramping of the muscles while undergoing dialysis is one of the most frequent complaints of dialysis patients. It occurs in up to 20% of dialysis sessions.

• Risk factors for cramping includes high weight gain in between dialysis sessions.


• Having low serum calcium or derangement of sodium and potassium.


• Intradialytic hypotension may also present with cramping of the muscles.

While many corrective actions may taken during the treatment to treat the cramps, it may be found that this interrupts treatment time and can reduce clearances and achieved ultrafiltration especially if sodium chloride is used repeatedly to treat the episodes of cramping.

Recently an article published in the American Journal of Therapeutics has shown that vitamin E maybe effective at preventing cramping during dialysis.

The basis for the study was that many reports previously suggested that vitamin E (vit. E) may be effective for the prevention of HD-associated cramps.

• The investigators decided  to perform a selected controlled trial of supplementary vit. E for treatment of patients who are known to have frequent cramping episodes during and after dialysis.


• They compared the number of attacks of muscle cramps with the patient's baseline over a specific period of time.


• The study was admittedly small with only 19 HD patients. Patients were treated 400 IU of VIT E daily for 12 weeks.

THE RESULT

• The frequency of muscle cramps decreased significantly during vit. E therapy, and, at the end of the trial, vit. E led to cramp reductions of 68.3%.  With no adverse effects.


• The study was not definitive however due to its small size. The fact that vitamin E had no significant side effects at the doses suggests this may be worth trying if you have very severe cramps that is if your nephrologist agrees and you have addressed all the risk factors mentioned above.