Woken by horrible bone pain (?) in leg last night

Pain is not a huge issue for me. But last night I was awoken - must have been around 3 am - by a horrible deep ache in my right leg. It almost felt like bone pain. I think this has occurred a few times before in the past. I managed to get back to sleep after 20 mintues or so.

Has anyone experienced this, and any idea what triggers it?

I'm going to add that I was drinking alcohol on Sunday evening. This pain felt very similar to pain I occasionally used to get in my hip(s) after drinking back in the day. But that was usually like 12 hours after drinking, and not over 24 hours after.

 

I get pain that feels like it’s in my bones, was told it’s fibromyalgia. Legs are one of the worse places, the deep pain. Found no help for it so far with pain meds except lidocaine does help a little (but that’s more for the muscular pain, but it just seems to reduce pain in general).
I find it particularly bad when I’m about to sleep and during the night (I do get woken with it).

 

My first thought re bone pain is hypoglycaemia, having had it severely myself. Do you have enough salt/sodium, and do you take ACE inhibitors for high blood pressure?

 

I don't take any medication really, and never knowingly had any problems with sugar or salt levels. But who knows.

 

A while ago a close relative of mine was suffering from severe prolonged leg and hip pain. She kept saying, 'it feels like it's inside my bones'. The dr thought it was just general aches and pains until she eventually had bloods done and it turned out she had advanced non-hodgkin's lymphoma and was admitted to hospital to start chemo the next day. I'm sure there are lots of other things that cause this. But if it worsens, might be worth mentioning to your GP.

 

I had an extremely severe hip pain a few weeks ago that seemed to come out of nowhere. I do sometimes get pain in my left hip and have done for nearly 50 years and I think I know what caused it. The pain is unpleasant but fairly minor in the scheme of things. But this time that I got the pain recently it was by far the worst I've ever had.

If I ever get pain in my hips or legs that I can't identify a cause for I always treat it like cramp and assume that my electrolytes are low. So, I drink some water with salt, potassium carbonate, and magnesium citrate in it - just quarter of a teaspoon of each.

If the pain doesn't go quickly and I haven't eaten for a while I eat something with carbs in to raise my blood sugar.

My self-care is based on the idea that I might have diagnosed myself incorrectly so I don't do anything to treat myself that could be excessive or dangerous. If it works, that's great, if it doesn't then I am unlikely to have harmed myself.

 

I know bone pain, too, only sometimes, on the surface of especially the legs.

It seems that all my pain is purely neurological, and it behaves in some sense indeed interesting.

 

Some time ago (3 or 4 years ago?) I had bad pain in my left leg, front of shin I think. Asked my GP and she thought it might be Vit D deficiency. Blood test showed my Vit D was low, so she prescribed Vit D pills. I'm supposed to keep taking them, but the ones with calcium that were prescribed were so huge I couldn't swallow them. I did take them for the first few months.

You're supposed to be able to chew them, but given the state of my teeth , and my gag reflex with anything that has artificial flavours in, I gave up. Should prob chase it up again, but they don't like to do Vit D testing as it's expensive. Plus can't see GP at present of course - don't feel up to a telephone consult at present.

I do hope that your pain is something easy to help dear @InitialConditions. Sending you cyber hugs, as I know how miserable leg pain can be!

 

You could ask your doctor about a different way of taking it - some GPs offer vit D injections. In my and my mums case , chronic vitamin D deficiency, we stopped getting tablets but buy the 3000 IU spray from Better you which keeps my levels up. You could ask them about different options

 

If you want to know your vitamin D level you can get it tested in the UK with a finger-prick test. The sample has to be sent back to the lab through the post.

https://www.vitamindtest.org.uk/

I struggle to swallow huge pills as well, and have found that small gel capsules containing oil and vitamin D3 only are the easiest for me to swallow because they just slide down. I would prefer olive oil capsules but they tend to be more expensive than the sunflower oil capsules, and since money is always a consideration for me I buy the sunflower oil ones.

I'm not loyal to a particular brand. This is the product I'm currently taking :

Code:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079K82M8V

If you want to work out your ideal dose, then this link should help :

https://www.grassrootshealth.net/project/dcalculator/

Incidentally, I would never take calcium unless I knew my levels were below the reference range.

 

I find the Better spray really good too. I took expensive tablets and didn't make a difference but with the spray I would say that it *might* stop me getting as many colds during the winter. I been using it the last few winters and haven't had my levels tested during this time so I don't know if it's actually upping my levels. But it's one of the few things I recommend to people (ME and not) - pretty inexpensive and during winter it's likely you don't get much sun so it seems like you might as well.

 

Thank you very much to all of you who have given me helpful suggestions about Vit D.

I'd like to bring this back on topic for @InitiialConditions, who is asking about deep leg pain.

Dear @InitialConditions, I don't know if you think Vit D might be helpful? If not I'm very sorry for taking your thread off topic.

Deep leg pain is the pits! I very much hope that your answer is as simple as mine was. Sending you soothing thoughts for your poor leg with hopes you can find a way to make it feel better.

 

Sorry to derail thread . We have found this brand of vitamins to be good as they have little/ no additives and come in eco friendly packaging.
https://maddiet.co/product/vegan-vitamin-d3/

 

These two websites :

https://saveourbones.com/
https://www.betterbones.com/

are both geared towards helping people improve their bone health if they are diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis. They have some interesting blog posts (ignore the ones about exercise) which might be of interest or relevance to anyone concerned about their bone health. I think you should get second, third and fourth opinions from other websites if you do find anything of interest or relevance to you.

 

Thanks. My vitamin D level is fine, and is actually probably quite high at the moment because I'm supplementing with a 5,000 UI dose.

 

Cancer pain tends to be consistent. It doesn't come and go.

 

@InitialConditions And that could be what is causing your bone pain. I went through a period of time I was getting bone pain in my lower legs and it was waking me up at night. It turns out it was the 3,000 IU of Vitamin D3 I was taking every morning. You might want to consider stopping the Vitamin D3 for a while and see if the pain goes away. I now take just 1,000 IU per day and I'm pain free at that dose.

 

It could be nerve damage.