Learn the Signs of RLS and How to Treat It
Do you have trouble sleeping at night due to restless legs? Here is a helpful overview of restless legs syndrome (RLS), including symptoms, causes, home remedies and treatments, and information to learn more.
What Is Restless Legs Syndrome?
They arrive soon after you lie down to sleep: strange sensations creeping through your legs. People variously describe the sensations as tugging, pulling, tingling, stinging, throbbing, itching, or aching; others say it feels as if something is crawling or flowing inside their legs.
The sensations produce a near-irresistible urge to get up and move around. This temporarily alleviates the problem, but it returns when you lie back down. It disrupts your sleep and can disturb your sleeping partner.
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Called restless legs syndrome (RLS)鈥攐r, more formally, Willis-Eckbom disease鈥攖he condition is best characterized as a neurological sensory disorder with symptoms that are produced from within the brain itself. Experts say that for most folks, it鈥檚 mild and readily self-managed without medical intervention.
However, for some, restless legs syndrome can be severe and disabling (primarily because of long-term sleep deprivation). The lack of sleep can affect concentration and memory, relationships, work productivity, and even anxiety and depression.
What Causes Restless Legs Syndrome?
Although researchers say RLS involves the neurotransmitter dopamine, they don鈥檛 understand what causes the condition in most cases. They say it may have a genetic component, may result from iron-deficiency anemia, and may worsen in stressful situations.
As well as iron deficiency, it may be worsened by alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. It may also be triggered by certain prescription drugs (for antinausea, antipsychosis, antidepression) and some over-the-counter medications for colds and allergies that contain older antihistamines such as diphenhydramine.
Sleep deprivation and other sleep conditions like sleep apnea also may aggravate or trigger symptoms in some people. Reducing or completely eliminating these factors may relieve symptoms.
It can also co-occur with serious medical conditions (including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and neurological disease such as Parkinson鈥檚 disease), which medical experts say should be ruled out when RLS is severe.
But the same experts stress that while a diagnosis of RLS may accompany a serious disease, it doesn鈥檛 imply the presence or impending onset of one.
Restless legs syndrome can affect people of any age. It affects women twice as often as men, and is especially prevalent during pregnancy, though in those cases it typically disappears after the baby is born. Some people experience RLS as a chronic condition, either continuous or intermittent, and for those it tends to worsen with age.
Is Restless Legs Syndrome Underdiagnosed or Overhyped?
Many websites and print articles describe RLS as common, underdiagnosed, and undertreated, encouraging people who experience the unpleasant condition to seek medical help.
But a 2006 Public Library of Science (PLOS) article, , makes the case that RLS has been overhyped by drug-company marketing campaigns. They write: 鈥淔or some people, symptoms are severe enough to be disabling. But for many others with milder problems, these 鈥榮ymptoms鈥 are just the transient experiences of everyday life.鈥
Non-Drug Therapies for Restless Legs Syndrome
Fortunately, most cases of RLS can be treated with non-drug therapies such as lifestyle changes. Here are some therapies that medical professionals have found helpful with patients:
- Iron supplementation usually helpful for those who find they have low or low-normal blood tests called ferritin and transferrin saturation. Iron supplements are available over-the-counter.
- Cold or heat packs applied to the legs.
- Moderate daily exercise with special attention to leg-stretching exercises.
- Stretching/massaging legs and feet after exercise and before going to bed.
- A cool shower or warm bath before bed.
- Decreasing the use of alcohol and tobacco.
- Foot wraps that put pressure underneath the foot (approved by FDA)
- Daily meditation, especially a full or shortened version of the .
- .
- Going to bed later and sleeping later into the morning. For many, the symptoms abate in the morning hours. Get more information on sleep deprivation and sleeping better.
- Find out how to treat nighttime leg cramps.
As with drug therapy, research hasn鈥檛 shown that any of these remedies can prevent or cure restless legs syndrome. But they don鈥檛 cost anything to try, and aren鈥檛 likely to produce dangerous side effects.
Medical Treatments for Restless Legs Syndrome
In recent years, physicians have begun using a broad array of drugs to treat 鈥渕oderate-to-severe鈥 RLS. Both anti-seizure drugs and dopaminergic agents have been approved by the FDA, as well as some more serious drugs. There鈥檚 also an FDA-approved that helps some people but can make the condition worse in others.
But relative to drug therapy, researchers say:
- No single drug works for all people.
- None offers a cure for restless legs syndrome.
- Most are recommended for short-term use only.
- Most have serious side effects.
- The drugs can be expensive.
Reviewing a study of current drug treatments for RLS, one medical reviewer noted that even though many people taking these drugs experience short-term relief of RLS symptoms, 鈥淯p to 25 to 50 percent with even moderate-to-severe and longstanding symptoms stop taking these medications after more than a year due to either side effects or lack of benefit.鈥
Learn More
We hope this helps you understand the basic symptoms, causes, and non-medical treatments for Restless Legs Syndrome. To dig deeper and learn more about RLS, we refer you to and the as well as your own medical professional. To explore treatments, speak to your physician.
Do you have any tips for dealing with restless legs syndrome? Let us know below!
Margaret Boyles
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this is not a 'disease'---it is simply a magnesium deficiency---best forms of magnesium are citrate and malate---MAGNESIUM CALM is a powdered version which is nice to drink as a tea before retiring for the evening---it promotes calm and sleep and restless legs and leg cramps---we like the lemon version, but they all work nicely---and eat a banana a few times a week to keep magnesium/potassium levels balanced---why take any drugs when you can eat your medicine?
taking Sinamet (a drug that they give to patients with Parkinsons Disease). I was on the strongest dose and taking two in the evening before going to bed; however, I had to take them at least two hours apart otherwise I have a violent case of vomiting. After having taken them for so long they were becoming effective less often. With this in mind I visited my doctor and she was once again going to up my dosage and then realized I was already on the strongest does, so instead I now take three at a lower dose (again separating the ingestion by 2 hours each). They worked great for the next few weeks and then began to be sporadically effective so I decided to try something different (on my own initiative without consulting my doctor or a pharmacist, who has an even better knowledge of pharmacology than my GP) --- what I now do that works great is to take one tablet a place it under my tongue and then rub my tongue over it gradually, keeping it there for up to two hours before doing this for a 2nd and again right a bedtime. Taking the sinamet sublingually has worked better than anything before; however, I do plan on discussing this with a pharmacist and if he foresees no problems with this type of uptake, will share my method of application with my GP. Note: My current prescription is for Levodopa 100 mg/Carbidopa 25 mg. Also I take no other medications, and I do not drink or smoke. I hope that you see this note and that you find it helpful. I am hoping that one day this RLS torture can be resolved once and for all without the need for drug intervention, but a positive cure.
You are so right! I had RLS for years and Magnesium Bisglycinate totally stopped the RLS in its tracks.
I've had restless legs since I was about 20 years old. It took me a long time to figure out that caffeine is my problem. When I stopped caffeine the RLS went completely away. I stayed off caffeine for years and years and about a year ago I slowly started introducing it into my diet again. Well, after a few months I once again had to deal with RLS. So no more caffeine for me.
Magnesium doesn't help relieve my restlessness. Eating bananas isn't a good option for me because of my diabetes. Kiwi and tomato juice are good magnesium/potassium sources but they don't relieve my symptoms and the kiwi is also high in fructose/sugar. Not eating after around 3 pm is my best bet for relief but isn't a good choice because of my diabetes.
I've just read through all the comments and it was helpful to see what other sufferers have to say about remedies. Mine started when I was pregnant (my child was 33 yesterday!). For me it comes and goes, sometimes it's really bad for weeks, other times it seems to go away. I've got as far as thinking it must be related to diet in some way. Eventually about 5 years ago I discovered, by accident, that magnesium supplements help. So it was encouraging to read many others have found this helpful. Then I did an internet search for home remedies about 3 years ago and it came up with citric acid, which is in all citrus fruits. So now if it gets bad I put 6-7 splashes of lemon juice in half a glass of water. BINGO! It's gone about 10 minutes later. I have also tried the soap method and that seemed to work too. The other thing that works, but I find it difficult to do, is deeply massaging my calf and thigh muscles. Wishing everyone good luck in finding the remedy, drug or otherwise that gives complete relief. and Happy Christmas! x
For the past 40 years, I鈥檝e had the most severe RLS symptoms of anyone I know. They don鈥檛 bother me as much as they bother those around me. My roommate used to throw shoes, books and magazines at me at night to get me to stop. I鈥檇 wake thinking I fell asleep in the closet. My long-suffering wife鈥檚 mantra is 鈥淪top. Shaking.鈥 It doesn鈥檛 hurt me because my legs automatically compensate by shaking back and forth. Every day. All day. And night. They are shaking as I write this. When nervous, such as on deadline, they pump up and down like sewing machine needles. I work in a 51-story office tower and people around me have said they felt the building moving.
I only feel the symptoms when people ask me to stop moving my legs: creepy-crawlies, pulling, stretching. Feels like growing pains and I want to jump out of my skin. My (soon to be former) doctor poo-poos it. Yale was conducting a study and said I didn鈥檛 qualify! (That鈥檚 probably Yale just being Yale. Their motto: 鈥淚f it鈥檚 obvious, it can鈥檛 be true.鈥)
I鈥檓 taking potassium, magnesium, and B for other reasons and they have no effect for me. I鈥檝e noted a number of the remedies recommended in the Comments, will try them and will see how it goes. More exercise is probably a good start. It seems to fix a lot of things.
Thanks, everyone, for sharing thoughts and ideas.
I have had restless legs for about 58 years. It seems to run in our family, especially the women. My aunt found a website called Nature's Inventory. They have a product called Night Time Leg Calm. I have been using this for the past 8 years with great success. I put it on every night before I go to bed. It lasts all night and most all the next day. It also works for my sister. You apply it to the small of your back and rub it in. Sweet Dreams after that.
I have intermittent RLS, and my neighbor recommended VICKS vaporub, which she just happened to hear about on the radio. It works for me 99% of the time, and I bless my neighbor every time I wake up in the middle of the night with twitchy legs! I just rub a little on the instep of my feet where all the veins are, and then put sox on, which I do anyway, because I always have cold feet. It's a cheap enough remedy to try, and no side effects. I even bought the cheaper store brand! Since I don't have RLS all the time, it seems I must be doing (or not doing) something, but I can't figure it out. I will try some of the other suggestions posted--more water, limit caffein, sweets and alcohol before bedtime, supplement with vitamins E, D, B complex, magnesium and potassium. BUT--I won't leave home without my Vicks in the suitcase! I see another Vicks remedy mentioned here on 11/24/15--but I don't use a lot of Vicks, just a light film on the instep.
I have suffered as long as I can remember, possibly from age 5 until today with RLS. I have tried most all the remedies listed in these letters. My doctor recently put me on Mirapex, which helped a lot. I have been taking this drug for about 3 yrs. and I find it no longer has an effect on my legs. I do want to mention that for ten yrs. or so, my friend and I tried walking at least 5 nights per week, doing between 2 - 4 miles each night. As long as I was involved with this walking exercise, I was never bothered with RLS. However, once I stopped the walking the RLS was right back again. At age 78, I can no longer walk for exercise, due to other hip and leg problems. If the RLS it too bothersome, I can stand, lean over a table, and swing my legs, trying to exercise them for about 30 mins. for each leg and it does relieve some of the pain. At least I can sleep when I do this. I have always had to sleep with my feet sticking out from under the cover. This has been a very bothersome and painful thing to deal with. I have not tried the Vitamin E but will get some to try. I also suffer with spinal stenosis which limits any strenuous exercise I might be able to do. I take Tramadol and Neurontin every 8 hrs. and this offers what little relief I can really count on at this time, what with other problems with the spine, etc. I hope the medical profession can pinpoint the cause and offer some relief to others for some of these painful problems.
