Clinical Characteristics of Muscle Cramps in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

In order to investigate the characteristics of muscle cramps occuring as a symptom of diabetes mellitus, a questionaire was administered to 206 healthy subjects and 200 patients with diabetes mellitus. The frequency of muscle cramps in healthy subjects was no greater than once a day, while 4.5% of the diabetics had cramps more than once a day. The percentage of diabetics with muscle cramps occurring once a week was significantly greater than the percentage of healthy subjects (11.5% vs 1.9%, p<0.01). The frequency of muscle cramps tended to be higher in patients on insulin therapy. When we examined the relationship between muscle cramps and diabetic neuropathy, diabetics with normal motor nerve conduction velocity (NCV) and thermal discrimination threshold (TDT) were found to have more muscle cramps than patients with abnormal NCV and TDT. There was no correlation between muscle cramps and other diabetic complications such as retinopathy or nephropathy. There was no significant difference in the serum calcium and magnesium concentrations of diabetics with and without muscle cramps.
In summary, muscle cramps seems to be common symptom of patients with diabetes mellitus.