Is there anyone here who suffers with restless legs -proper name Willis-Ekbom disease? If so, do they find it happens more when in the throes of a flare?
I have suffered from restless legs since a teenager. My Dad had it as does one of my daughters.
Now it seems to happen everytime my feet flare - usually at night when I'm hoping for some shut-eye. I can only ease it by getting up and walking about.
Not just my legs but sometimes my arms as well just to add more torment. I must look like a physical version of Tourettes kicking and jerking my limbs about.
Should anyone else have it I would be interested in how they deal with it.
I don't know if it's restless leg syndorme but I can't keep my legs still in bed, I feel like I need to keep them moving constantly, the feeling is a bit like the numbness feeling I get with EM... No idea what it is tho..!
Right now I am standing on the cold tiles waiting out a flare. It is 1.15 pm and feels like someone is holding a lighted cigarette to my feet in places. My right leg is being waved around to assuage the horrid restlessness in it which comes in waves. 1 2 3 kick 1 2 3 wiggle 1 2 3 swear.
My restless legs accompany the first and last periods of a flare which always starts with the tingling before the burning and swelling kicks in. Then I get it again as the flare starts to subside.I can't relate to the numbness feeling in my legs (tho my toes get that way) that you mention. It is hard to describe and not necessarily the same for everyone who suffers. Mine is like an inner crawling itch which goes from my hip to my ankles and there is nothing I can do except get up and walk around which as we all know is not much fun in the early hours of the morning when sleep is all you crave. I also get it in my arms. I really know how to have fun!
It has been much worse since I started the Amitriptyline and there is a link between taking that and the inhalers I use for my COPD. It can leach the potassium from your system so I have started drinking pineapple/orange juice to up my levels a bit just to be on the safe side and hope that it brings some relief from the restless legs.
Many years ago when I was going through the menopause I suffered (as did my poor family) from severe mood swings. My then GP gave me some pills that he said he gave to 'his ladies of a certain age' which seemed to help them. Don't know what they were but probably some sort of anti depressant. I felt so ill after a week of taking them I went back to see the doc and he did some blood tests. The same evening the he called and told me to go and buy and drink loads of pineapple/orange juice and if I didn't feel better by the morning to get toA & E pronto. It was only later I learned that my potassium levels were dangerously low. The juice did the trick within a few hours having drunk about 5 ltrs of juice.and I felt better.
Taught me a lesson to check on drug interactions every time I was given any medications. We are all a lot more savvy these days and less likely to pop whatever the doctor prescribes without reading the information that comes with it at the very least.
There are several sites for Restless Legs aka Ekboms Syndrome, both in England and the US. Like EM there is no 'cure' as such for it.
Flare is beginning to ease so with luck by 2.30 pm I will get a nap as no sleep last night. Ain't life just one big bowl of cherries!!!