Tags: Disease.
A charley horse is a popular North American colloquial term for painful spasms or cramps in the leg muscles typically lasting anywhere from a few seconds to about a day. It can also refer to a bruise on an arm or leg and a bruising of the quadriceps muscle of the anterior or lateral thigh or contusion of the femur that commonly results in a haematoma and sometimes several weeks of pain and disability. In this latter sense such an injury is known as dead leg.