Restless Leg Syndrome

I have not been diagnosed with RLS, but before I started on MFP I was being treated for sleep problems related to anxiety and I definitely had the symptom of restless legs. Since then, I have lost 40 pounds, started working out 6 days a week, stopped taking the anxiety medication, and started sleeping well! Here are a few things I found helpful when I was in the midst of anxiety/restless legs/little sleep:

-yoga or stretching in the evening
-relaxation techniques (google "progressive relaxation techniques")
-epsom salt baths in the evening
-wheat bags or heating pads on legs at bedtime

I have suffered from RLS for a few years now. It comes and goes and I can't link anything specific to it. It got so bad last year that I finally broke down and went to the doctors because I couldn't sleep for more than a few hours a night. The doctor prescribed some medication for it but my insurance company wouldn't cover it because they said it was such a highly addictive mediation. But my mother did something for her RLS and SWEARS by it. She sleeps with an unwrapped bar of Ivory soap between the sheets down by her feet......she had heard something on some doctor show about it and tried it....said it worked immediately. If she is fibbing.....at least her feet smell good!! hahahahaha

I am currently not having any issues but when it flares up again, I am gonna try it!

Holy restless legs.. I have no good advice to offer but I'm 25 and have suffered with this for as long as I can remember.. I try to run as often as possible, and stretch before bed. I find that I do well by reading before falling asleep.. the distraction is just enough that I tend to tire and fall asleep quickly.. Good luck friend!

It is interesting to read these posts. Whenever I am exhausted and really need to go to bed, that's when I can't keep my legs still.
My legs aren't in any pain, but I have this obnoxious sensation and I must move them to make it stop....but it only stops temporarily and I feel it again. Once I go to sleep it doesn't bother me anymore.
Hubby and I were driving one night from Alabama to Georgia and I couldn't take the drive so we had to rent a room and stay the night.

I've never asked my Dr. about it because it's only at night and seems to stop when I go to sleep. I don't want to be put on meds if I can avoid it.

Have been dealing with RLS for some time now. Sleeping with a body pillow between my legs is the only thing that seems to relax me. No meds so its worth a try.

this sounds like me too. Started talking a multi vitamin and calcium seems to have helped with the leg pain. Lots of stretching too. Just added Yoga to my weekly routine-hate it but my muscles love it.

I've suffered from a mild case of this for years. I find doing a few things helps calm doing the gittery, jumpy legs.

--A hot shower or hot bath. I massage my legs in the shower and I also "punch" the back of my legs. It helps get the blood flowing.

--Sounds crazy but using a rolling pin up and down the back of my legs really helps. It hurts like a ****ens but I find that this deep tissue massage pressure really works.

I'd been having RLS for years without even knowing it had a name. And even then (and now), online literature seems to point to Caucasians suffering from it more than Asians. That, I believe, is inaccurate. I am an Asian of Chinese descent and I spoke to my family members about it. Apparently, RLS is a known "ailment" in Chinese medicine. I admit neither myself nor my family members are experts on this, but when generations of your elders (mom, grandma, great grandaunts etc) know what it is, you sit up and listen.

It seems that RLS is an inbalance in the heat/ cooling (ying and yang if you like) in the food you consume and largely, it also comes from the lack of post-partum care a woman gets within the month or two after giving birth. All who believe in this reasoning say that RLS symptoms will surface if one consumes too much "cooling" foods, such as white veges (cabbage, lettuce etc) and citrus fruits (oranges). I have tried to observe when my symptoms arose and have noted that there could be some truth to that claim.

As for post-partum care, the Chinese believe that foods should be pretty "heaty" immediately after giving birth (everyday meals comprises of gingery recipes, including ginger wines and sesame oil stir fries) for at least one month. They also believe that one should completely keep the limbs warm by wrapping them in clothing/ socks and the new mother should abstain from taking showers (yucks) unless these showers are taken with water boiled with specific "wind" expelling herbs. In fact, that is what the Chinese call RLS: wind in the legs or limbs.

Sometimes expelling of this "wind" may also involve accupressure massages and soaking the affected limb in warm lemongrass tea. I tried that and those two worked pretty well. In fact, I have also tried sewing up a cloth bag filled loosely with some legume/ small beans/ rice (bag's about the size and length of two long envelopes), nuked that in the microwave for 1 minute and wrapped it around the affected limb for my grandmother (who suffers from it as well). She told me it eases the pain.

So, for all the sufferers out there, I hope this helped. Apologies if I didn't make sense from a western medicine perspective.