Stoid, haven’t you played around with a low carb diet before? Did going gluten free and/or a ketogenic diet help at all with RLS? I’ve heard anecdotal stories that it is helpful.
I’ve heard that a 30C homeopathic dose of aloe vera, bitter orange, black cohosh, damiana, dong quai herb, ginger root, ginkgo biloba, green tea, milk thistle and acai berries will help. It won’t, but it won’t kill you. And it won’t even taste bad, or like anything but pure water. :rolleyes:
I’ve had what sounds like RLS and (we’re in the Pit, right?) it STILL sounds like a bullshit syndrome*, and I don’t envy the guy from Big Pharma who, fifteen years ago, went to management with a proposal to spend millions on a treatment for a condition that nobody back then had. Or realized they had. But now that daytime TV has discovered it and and millions have decided the have it, there’s billions to be made from it and I’m sure they’ve got their best men on it.
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- Yes, I know it’s a real syndrome with a real, scientifical name and everything, and patients who are actually impaired by it, but I give the fisheye to anything with treatments advertised on daytime TV, especially when claims of people having it only became common a few years ago.
ETA: I’m also suspicious of any disease that has so many, very different, ways to treat it.
Uh, no. Cancer most definitely does involve microorganisms, as each cancer cell is largely self-contained and capable of replicating on its own.
However, he’s also right about the larger issue; we have precious few ways to make the body go “right”, go the way we want it when we want it to. Most medicine is about making sure the body can heal back to normal. When the body itself is the problem, medicine gets pretty iffy.
Absolutely not a joke. RLS was my fucking nemesis for years. Nothing ever helped except marijuana; and that was only slightly. RLS has contributed in a big way to my lifelong struggles with insomnia. It wasn’t until I began being prescribed Tramadol (brand name Ultram) for my chronically torn rotator cuffs a few years ago that I stumbled up this magnificent side effect. I haven’t been plagued by RLS since.
Knowing full well how torturous restless legs can be, I’d say consider it. The big drawback to the medication is that it is a narcotic-despite being categorized by the FDA as a non-narcotic due to a molecular structure technicality of the drug-and as such carries the dependence and addiction risks of an opiate.
It is not surprising to me considering how many people are taking medications that have akathsia as a side-effect.
Stoid, are you taking medication that could be causing or exacerbating your RLS? After I stopped taking bupropion, I noticed a big difference in my “writhing” issues.
Well, then that’s a HUGE opportunity for you! You can start a company that actually cures diseases! Imagine how much money you could make!
(in other words, do you see how this conspiracy makes no sense?)
For those other times when it doesn’t seem to be helping, add additional gin to the tonic water.
I never noticed it being so, but I will pay attention in future.
The only thing I HAVE noticed is that being very active, especially if it involves a lot of standing, aggravates it. Counter-intuitive, I know, but the truth. I have been maniacally busy caring for my dogs and my home in the last month, many changes, and I have had a lot of days with aching feet and legs, which almost always means a bad bout of RLS for dessert. And a few hardcore muscle spasms, to boot: I’m the only person I know who gets massive charleyhorses in my inner thighs(I can actually feel the muscle spasming, aside from the insane pain - it feels the way a snake in a bag looks, only slow motion.) and the top of my feet (which causes them to pull back as though I’m touching my toes… very creepy) . Yanks me out of a sound sleep screaming. The thighs, not the feet. Trust me, next time you have one in your calf and you think it’s hell, be thankful.
Do you get it in your arms? That started with me about ten years ago. Not frequent, and it doesn’t generally last very long, but man, when it does…holy hell. And it is always with the legs, never instead of, so I’m just going nuts everywhere.
I will look into tramadol, certainly. I have ADD and anxiety, so I have some other chemicals floating around already, making me a little wary of adding to the mix, but I’ll talk to my doctor.
Except none of them work. And it’s not really a disease, it’s a weird disorder that is definitely genetic. I’m 55 years old and I vividly recall, when I was just a little girl, my mother kicking and writhing, then getting one of us (her daughters) to massage the backs of her knees because pressure helps. It didn’t have a name that I knew of until much later, many years after I had started suffering with it myself.
That is also interesting, and the rise in akathsia diagnoses (and self-diagnoses) seems to have tracked the rise in their use. I checked the list and was relieved to see I’m not taking them because RLS really is annoying. I am looking forward to trying bupropion to augment my fluoxetine for other things, though. I had a case of the bugs the other day and while I’m well enough medicated to know they weren’t real, unlike a Morgellons sufferer, they were still annoying.
Anyway, I assume that Prozac has been tried on RLS. All I know is that I haven’t had it since I started taking my Vitamin P.
Did I let a “disease” past? Dammit, I tried to not use that word. 
[QUOTE=fiveyearlurker]
Well, then that’s a HUGE opportunity for you! You can start a company that actually cures diseases! Imagine how much money you could make!
(in other words, do you see how this conspiracy makes no sense?)
[/QUOTE]
Actually, no. It makes some sense to me that if I was making a lot of money from managing (but not curing) an illness with medication, then curing it would mean the end of selling those meds.
I know that when I was diagnosed with depression I was prescribed meds, then more meds, different meds, then I developed anxiety, so another couple of different meds. I was on like 5 different meds and I was a fucking mess. I only got better when I got off all of them. I haven’t had any depression or anxiety since and it’s been like 8 years.
I’m not saying I believe there is a conspiracy, I’m just saying that IMO our society takes too many pills.
And if you started a company that sold a pill that absolutely cured depression with a single dose, you would be a billionaire overnight.
[QUOTE=Fiveyearlurker]
And if you started a company that sold a pill that absolutely cured depression with a single dose, you would be a billionaire overnight.
[/QUOTE]
If a disease is cured, eventually it is completely eradicated, right? leaving no demand for the cure anymore. And being “a billionaire” is different than earning trillions, annually, year after year after year. Illnesses are an ongoing cash cow for the pharmaceutical companies.
[QUOTE=Measure for Measure]
That said, spare a moment of contemplation for the poor souls living in tropical countries that suffer from life threatening conditions that Big Pharma ignores because the market is too poor to buy their products. Or maybe effective treatments exist, but getting drugs that cost 20 cents per kid per year to the village is too complicated. eg Leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness, hookworm, schistosomiasis, etc.
[/QUOTE]
many diseases could be eradicated over time if those vaccines were made available all over the world. Why aren’t they?
It couldn’t possibly be about money, could it?
However, this doubles as a positive because, at least in my area, it has absolutely no street value at all and isn’t known as an abused medication so it’s extremely easy to get; no doctor around here would question a request for a tramadol prescription because it’s not at all a common drug-seeker target.
I’ve been taking ultram since late 2010, as needed for back pain. I stopped taking it in Feb when I became pregnant because my doctor has absolutely no experience with ultram in pregnancy and told me no. My leg thing (not officially diagnosed as anything, but a really uncomfortable, sometimes very painful tightening/crawly sort of feeling, especially at night) has definitely gotten worse. Could be exacerbation from pregnancy though, I suppose, especially now in the third trimester.
He gave me vicodin last week because I can’t just take nothing at all all the time. No changes for my leg thing though. 
Or scummy little anti-vaxxers.
Not all vaccines work 100%, some need boosters over the years and some diseases have resisted attempts at vaccines.
[URL=“Vaccine hesitancy - Wikipedia”]
[QUOTE=runner pat]
Or scummy little anti-vaxxers.
[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah, I can’t believe this didn’t come to mind. I have an older child who has Autism and when he was young, the push from many parents was for no vaccines because so many believed that’s what caused Autism. I always vaccinated because I did not believe that theory. I also didn’t factor in the folks that don’t vaccinate for religious reasons.
I though Restless Leg Syndrome was one of those fake diseases like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or diabetes.
Stoid - Don’t you take enough ADD medicine each day to get a rhinoceros hopped up (I recall you detailing your dosage before and it was a crazy high amount)? Maybe cutting back on the speed will settle your legs.