United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

The lack of calcium in the injured arm (related to the decreased movement) will cause tingling and numbness in the fingers. It can also cause muscle twitches, cramps, and tetany. Just learned this and thought I'd pass it along. I know a lot of us have kids who bite or chew on the fingers of the injured arm, this could be another reason.

I'm not sure if increased oral intake of calcium would help this or not - might be something to think about though. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Tums would be an easy way to get the extra calcium in I guess.

This is interesting

As far as Tums ...

Does taking Tums change the stomach acids necessary for digestion.... I wondered about that when told to take more calcium....

So I never took them... and the calcium supplements made me sick... so I skipped it and when I had the last two bone density taken.... ready.... I have the bone density of a young adult... but I wonder what the right arm is compared to the left....
How could I find out????

As you can tell I am not a student of medicine... I only study what I have to... LOL...

Kath

yep kathleen.... shouldn't be taking them with meals only inbetween or at night...but I just don't know of any calcium supplements that are kid friendly.....they have kid friendly vitamins but I've never seen just calcium like that.

As far as foods with calcium...the foods with the highest levels of calcium are dark green vegetables, sesame seeds and seaweeds. I guess a kid might like sesame seeds (candy or halvah) but boy is that stuff fattening. It would be the equivalent of eating an ice cream sundae everyday. Well doesn't have to be halvah - you could just sprinkle sesames on food inconspicuously until the child realizes that there are seeds in everything he/she is eating!!! Then you can tell them they are pretending to be BigBird... it's too early in the morning. lol

There is a new calcium supplement for kids called Flinstones Calcium Chews. It's about the same as the adult womens called Viactive. It is a chocolate chew and is like a soft tootsie roll. Our peds office was sampling them abnd giving out coupons and Michaela thought they were candy. I got them but have to keep them put up so she won't eat them like candy. I tried one and it did taste like tootsie roll. They come in a carton that looks like a small ice cream carton.