Restless Leg Syndrome? Shake a leg!

[CarolAnn]

Ever have twitching muscles in your legs wake you up?

My sister did, and found something that works for her - she gets out of bed and lays down on the floor. She does some leg lifts, then shakes the dickens out of each leg - and continues with more leg lifts! She repeats this cycle until she's exhausted.

She has found that the exercise tires the muscles so that they relax and let her sleep. Since she's got a desk job, she blieves her muscles are just responding to stress - and need to get the full exercise that they are asking for when they twitch.

Now if anyone else has experienced this, what have you tried, and did it work for you?

[denham]

I have never been diagnosed with restless legs syndrome. But I do get very weird feelings in my legs at times, kind of a cross between an itchy and crawly feeling, and it makes it darn near impossible to sleep sometimes. I just feel that I need to move them. I move, toss, turn, kick, and generally just go nuts trying to calm the restless legs. I have found this to help: tighten all the muscles in my legs for a few seconds, relax, repeat for a few minutes. Then elevate my legs and it seems to help me sleep.

[robv]

More than likely it's coming from stress on the spinal nerves in your lumbar spine.

Esp. if it gets worse at night, that's either a slight bulge or left over scar tissue pressing on a nerve. Easy to fix, but there's a variation of the stretch depending on what the cause is.

[TNDadx4]

I've been diagnosed with RLS. I've tried several things like Requip and a Tempupedic-type mattress to no avail.

Stretching does seem to help at times as does making sure that you are REALLY tired/exhausted when going to bed. Cutting out caffeine about an hour before bedtime helps some people.

[bookwormom]

I get enough exercise all day long, but I have been using Dolomite for years and that helps me. It feels like..uh, if my legs were a guitar the strings would be way too tight, I feel like shaking them, but Dolomite seems to help. I started using it as a young woman for PM stress and cramps, it worked well, also helped when the kids had growing pains.

[SkooliesRock]

More than likely it's coming from stress on the spinal nerves in your lumbar spine.

Esp. if it gets worse at night, that's either a slight bulge or left over scar tissue pressing on a nerve. Easy to fix, but there's a variation of the stretch depending on what the cause is.



I am inclined to believe that. My step-mother has them bad. She's tried several meds but none seem to help her. She also happens to have an extremely bad back, and I've told dad I think it's the source of her problem. But you know the drs.....gotta write those scripts.

I actually developed them after a MVA. Mine have calmed down quite a bit, pretty much limited to my right leg. Sometime it's nearly like I'm kicking a football :o lol....I get some strange looks at times.

[sillymom]

I have Restless Leg Syndrome and take Mirapex at night and works great