Restless leg syndrome is there any new treatments besides Requip or Mirapex?

I have had restless leg syndrome with periodic limb movement disorder all my life. I have tried homeopaths,neurologists and sleep specialists and still have horrible nights and my rls starts early in the day. It is unnerving and so truly uncomfortable. Just wondering if anyone is having an ounce of relief.

Stretching does nothing to allieviate my discomfort. I appreciate your thoughts.
I have had RLS since childhood and have gone without caffenine,exercised,took warm baths,used leg creams that all left me still in pain.
If you have true RLS it doesn't go away it only gets worse with age.

Not really.. i also have plmd/rls. There are medications used for parkinson's disease but that is mostly off label adn they have more serious side effects that rule them out . That being said, they reccomend home treatment, which really isn't all to effective. I've pretty much given up on not drinking caffine, the relief it provides doesn't outweigh the perks i get from drinking it. The only other medication that would truely help is muscle relaxers, some pain medications and anti anxiety medication { that along with thier other effects have muscle relaxant qualities. such as valium and hydrocodone ), which are generally not prescribed except for something occasional because they are addictive and drs are afraid of drug addicts searching for a high or being sued if you became dependent (which rarely happens when you take medication as prescribed, and then come off it has prescribed. Something all those people who sue fail to mention) and disregard people who actually need relief.

I've had this problem a time or to, One thing that helped was to cut down on the caffine and sugar. So , Sodas would be out to .

Hi,

You never mentioned stretching. Do you stretch any of your muscles and or legaments or joints.

Have you tried pulling yourself upwards as if you are reaching something that is way up so high you can't reach it unless you will stand in your tippitoe? Try that stretching your arms reaching up - everyday...at least i0 times holding up for 10 seconds each time.

Then if you are sitting, try to move your legs as many times as you need or can, especially if you are having the restlessness in your legs. Make sure the next position wjould be comfortable from your legs to your thigh to your waist and arms. If you get bored doing all the position chaning, walk around and don't think about why you need to walk around - sometimes the more you think about it, the more it attack your nerves.

Hope this works for you - as it did for me.

During two acute hypothyroidism episodes, I had severe bouts of restless legs syndrome.

Doc suggested a very, very small dose of clonazepam/klonopin (1/2 a tablet of the very lowest dose available), and it worked wonders for me - if you've never tried it, it may be worthwhile to give it a shot. Sorry you are going through this.

One of my best friends has had RLS for many years. She tried all of the major commercial drugs available, but experienced too many negative side effects (having witnessed this, I think all of these drugs are bad news). She finally got relief this past summer when she started taking vitamin supplements, specifically a multi-vitamin, an omega fatty acid 3/6/9 complex and an iron supplement in the morning and calcium/magnesium tablets and liquid glucosamine at night. We weren't sure which of these supplements was the one that was helping so we did some research after the fact and apparently iron and/or calcium/magnesium are well known to help RLS and are highly recommended (by everybody except drug companies of course). My friend started taking supplements because she was feeling run down - she also had bloodwork done and her doctor told her she was anemic, suggested iron supplements and gave her an exact iron dosage and did follow-up tests 3 months later. I would suggest doing the same as it turns out that you can get iron poisoning if you overdose iron (as the human body cannot flush excess iron). Anyway, it has been several months and she rarely experiences RLS symptoms now.

Before we found out about the vitamins, she tried doing stretches in the am and periodically during the day and in the evening as we thought all of this might be related to blood circulation - she said stretches did help to make her feel better, but after the first week I don't think she remembered to do them most of the time. She also tried mineral ice and having her husband massage her leg and she says that really helped more than the stretches when she was having an attack.


P.S. It is possible that use of zoloft is related to RLS symptoms. If you are taking zoloft, you may want to try switching to a natural anti-depressent instead like SAM-e, 5htp, St. John's Wart, ginkgo bilboa, etc.

P.P.S. Important to take high dosages of omega (1,000 to 1,500) as this helps absorbtion - iron must be taken at different time than magnesium/calcium as they "block" each other from absorbing properly. Combos and times for taking vitamins listed above are best recommendations we could find after talking to some knowledgable persons and checking web. Don't expect instant relief - takes about a month to start seeing real improvement - more if you have serious deficiencies.

I think we are in the same boat. RLS seems to be taking over my life..been through the Dr.s and Nothing seems to help. My leg and hip muscles are so painful most of the time that it is hard to get up out of a chair after sitting for a while.( I am in my 40's) not old enough to expect feeling like this. If I can get 4-5 hours fo uninterrupted sleep in a night I think that's a good night. The only thing I have noticed is that stress and too much physical activity makes my RLS worse. The drugs prescribed are a nasty lot! I am taking Requip and Gabapentin before bed (Rebound RLS is occurring in the afternoon though) I can't take the Requip during the day because it makes me too tired to concentrate at work. I am having a sleep study done and am going to try talking to an Internal Medicine Dr. in our area who also does acupuncture. Wish we could email and commiserate if you want to, let me know. leaningoaks2@yahoo.com