Most leg pain results from wear and tear or overuse. It also can result from injuries or health conditions in joints, bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, nerves or other soft tissues. Some types of leg pain can be traced to problems in your lower spine.
Leg Pain Could Indicate Vein or Artery Disease
Often, leg pain is misdiagnosed as simply muscle aches or arthritis. The reality is leg pain and cramps may be signs of a more serious underlying disease; therefore, you should discuss your leg challenges with a vascular specialist.
Sore muscles after exercise
Usually your muscles will stop aching in 2 to 5 days and you won't need any medical attention. You should be able to ease symptoms yourself.
Growing pains is a term used for leg pain that is common in children aged 3 to 12. It's harmless and usually gets better on its own. The pain can be treated with painkillers like paracetamol.
Without movement or exercise, the muscles are weakened and deprived of a steady supply of blood, oxygen and nutrients. This, in turn, can lead to muscle pain.
Common causes of lower leg ache at night may include muscle cramps, muscle or tendon inflammation, bone fracture, blood clots (such as deep vein thrombosis [DVT]), varicose veins, peripheral artery disease (PAD), peripheral neuropathy, pregnancy, gout, and inflammatory arthritis.
Put a pillow or folded blanket underneath your mattress. Nothing bulky, just enough to raise the foot-end of your bed three or four inches. This helps relieve the pressure on the veins in your legs and lets gravity pick up the slack in getting blood back to your heart.
Drink plenty of fluids. You can also drink an electrolyte replacement drink or sports drink, such as Gatorade, after exercise. Walk around, or jiggle your leg.
Dehydration is one of the most common causes of leg cramps. A cramp is an involuntary contraction of a muscle. The fluids in your body allow your muscles to relax, but—when those muscles are dehydrated—they get irritable and prone to cramping.
Muscle Tension Muscle tension is also a fairly common cause of leg pain in those with anxiety. When a person feels high levels of stress, the muscles tend to become tense, and this tension, over long periods of time, can leave legs feeling achy.
Inflammation of muscles/tendons
You may experience pain and inflammation in your muscles and tendons during the night as these muscles are healing while you sleep, especially if you have an injury.
Lying on the side can cause or exacerbate leg pain in a couple ways: Putting direct pressure on a nerve root by lying on the leg affected by sciatic pain. Lying with the hips tilted too far to one side, which causes the spine to curve, pinching the nerve roots and causing leg pain.
Some people write off nightly leg pain as a symptom of getting older, but if you are experiencing nightly leg pain that is interrupting your sleep that could be a symptom of Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD). Peripheral Artery Disease is a circulatory disease that is caused by fatty deposits in your artery walls.
Chronic leg pain is a primary symptom of peripheral artery disease (PAD), a common and treatable condition in which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to your limbs and can threaten your heart.
Body aches can be a cause of both short-term ailments and long-term conditions. Healthy people may experience body aches after standing, walking, or exercising for a prolonged period of time. In others, body aches are a sign of an underlying medical condition or infection.
Leg pain is a common problem. It can be due to a cramp, injury, or other cause. Varicose veins are enlarged, twisted, painful superficial veins resulting from poorly functioning valves.
Instead, aching legs at night may indicate that something is wrong. We recommend visiting your doctor or a vascular specialist as soon as possible to determine the underlying cause. One potential cause of leg pain at night is peripheral artery disease (PAD).