My husband gets violent leg cramps. For a time, he was sleeping with slivers of soap stuck into long socks that came up to his knees. Oddly, it seemed to do something -- maybe it was the magnesium? He also takes magnesium supplements and an Indian herb called Amla. Amla is an interesting plant. Known as Indian gooseberry, it's often found in beauty concoctions, for instance it shows up in a lot of Indian hair oils. It's also a common supplement found in most health food stores. If you're not allergic to hot peppers such as cayenne, 19th century herbalist and healer Jethro Kloss advocated the use of cayenne both in external poultices and taken internally, i.e. pills or in cuisine such as hot sauce, for muscle issues.