Softer Foods, Smaller Portions. While following a bland food diet, a patient eats softer foods such as cream of wheat, mashed potatoes or cooked rice in place of heavier starches such as bread, crackers and grain cereals.
Quinine is an alkaloid, a naturally occurring chemical compound. How it works as a medicine is not entirely clear. Quinine was first isolated in 1820 from the bark of a cinchona tree. Bark extracts have been used to treat malaria since at least 1632.
Leg cramps are uncontrolled muscle contractions that can be so painful they can waken you from sleep. They occur in many adults and are reported more often by women, and especially pregnant women. Since the 1940s, doctors have been prescribing quinine for leg cramps because there are no other reliable treatments. The practice has continued despite multiple alerts from the FDA about the risks of quinine and its limited effectiveness.