Using Soap To Relieve Leg Cramps and Muscle Spasms

One of the most controversial home remedy for stopping leg cramps and restless legs at night involves placing a bar of soap under your bed sheets when you go to sleep. Even though there has yet to be any sort of scientific evidence in support of this cure, many people who once had leg cramps on a nightly basis now swear that they’ve had barely a muscle spasm since trying it.

Ivory soap is soft on the skin and is often recommended as a way to prevent leg cramps at night.

Ivory brand soap

This soap in the bed home remedy has actually been around for a while, even being mentioned regularly by syndicated columnist Ann Landers. No one is quite sure where or when this solution was first proposed or if it’s simply been an “old wives tale” that’s been passed down from one generation to the next.

Many people who try putting a bar of soap in their bed to relieve leg cramps or muscle spasms or restless leg syndrome (RLS) report that they begin to feel relief almost immediately and no one seems to understand exactly how or why it works. A quick search of online home remedy forums always turns up hundreds, if not thousands, of people who swear that their night time leg cramps go away when they put a bar of soap in their bed.

There is no exact way to use a bar of soap to prevent leg cramps, but these seem to be the general steps to follow:

1. Use the right soap for leg cramp relief: Not any soap will do. Some people claim that Dove brand soap and Dial brand soap will not work, but others refute this claim. If you’re going to stick with a brand, many people claim that Ivory brand soap works best. Some people report that a hotel bar of soap works, but more people try this with a full sized bar of bath soap.

2. Unwrap the soap: For the soap to prevent leg cramps most people claim it should be unwrapped.

3. Soap placement in the bed: Here is where you can begin to get creative. Some people place the bar of soap directly between their legs, down by their calves so that as they roll around at night their legs actually brush over it. Many people put the bar of soap under the fitted sheet of their bed, down near their feet. Another alternative is to cut the bar into smaller slices and place them in your socks which you wear to bed so that the soap is pressed directly against the bottom of your foot. Just be careful getting out of bed!

Skeptics claim that using a bar of soap to relieve Charlie Horses or restless legs has no scientific merit whatsoever and is simply a result of the placebo affect where someone believes a cure so much that they “trick” their body and mind into feeling better. The thousands of glowing recommendations over the years from different people does, however, seem to indicate that there may be something to the cure for leg cramps and RLS.

The real issue with finding a reliable cure for leg cramps is that scientists don’t entirely understand what causes leg cramps now. While there hasn’t been a definitive scientific study of how soap could affect muscle cramping, there have been some educated guesses. The most common explanation is that soap, like many sports drinks and foods, actually contains some types of sodium and potassium in them. Sodium and potassium work as regulatory chemicals in the body and there’s a chance that some of the chemicals in the soap are being absorbed by the skin of the legs. Another theory as to why a bar of soap in the bed prevents Charlie Horses has to do with what the soap absorbs, not gives off. Some believe the muscle cramps are caused by excess carbon dioxide in the blood and the bar of soap helps to absorb some of that CO2 and prevents leg cramps from occurring.

If you continue to have leg cramps you may want to look at dietary fixes, such as increasing the amount of potassium in your diet, drinking more water regularly and learning how to regularly stretch your legs properly before bed. Of course, if the soap doesn’t work you can always try using honey and cider vinegar to prevent your leg cramps!