Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

doety-- So you're running a stable dose of MJ? We've had a few folks recently who've sung its virtues, only to develop some tolerance that reduced the effect or caused them to up the dose. If so, I bet it's the combination of MJ and methadone that you're using. I would bet that's fairly unique in th...

I wish they would. It makes no sense to me that alcohol and THC are considered so differently under the law. I know they're very different drugs, but people use them for pretty much the same purposes recreationally, and it seems to me that if you have to make one of the two illegal, the wrong one is...

How long will you be on the high dose of ibuprofen? It might not matter if it's not too long. Many such effects are cumulative, and it may be that the increase in lithium is small over short periods. (I don't have the slightest clue one way or the other... you'd want to ask a professional.) You coul...

mack-- While I agree that it's annoying how many doctors equate PLMS and RLS, I do think a sleep study is probably worth doing, assuming it's not a financial hardship to do it. For instance, if you have both RLS and some form of regular insomnia, the two will get all synergistic and you'll really be...

crob-- It's common for latent or semi-latent RLS to amp up after using opioid painkillers for a while and then stopping. This usually happens to people after surgery. It happened to me after I had nasal surgery. For some people, it dies back down. These people were probably just suffering opioid wit...

Well, I can understand your frustration, but I have to say the article was otherwise remarkably unslanted and informative. By the way, they do mention at one point that being overweight can mess with your dopamine production, so there may be something to the study's hypothesis. Being overweight can ...

As an aside, I'd like to mention something I learned recently that frustrates me very, very much. Since developing drugs (including the far larger number of failed drugs) and getting them tested and to market costs a great deal in the first place, drug manufacturers generally recoup the costs throug...

One of the things you'd probably have the hardest time with is #5. The idea of a patient being involved in making the cost/benefit analysis with doctors and treatments is an issue, because most patients are frankly nitwits when it comes to medicine. It's not like buying food, for instance. Like heal...

I'm a little late on responding to the original question, but... Opioids make *most* people (like me) kinda comfy-dozey, so that's what you'll find in the typical side effects list. However, that wouldn't be a very comprehensive list. Unless you see a side effects list with a hundred entries, it's u...

The doctors will know where the money comes from, whether they see it directly or not. It's not like there will be a big black curtain hiding the innards of the payment scheme. They'll know the money is coming through the government, and that the patient had no choice in giving that money to the gov...

Fentanyl is an opioid, just like hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine, etc. As such, it will give you a certain amount of mood *boost* while in effect, and as with any such modification, you get a rebound effect when it wears off. However, if you were on some kind of long-term treatment with such a drug...

Correct, point noted, with one disagreement: technically speaking, the government doesn't take money from the taxpayers; the taxpayers give the money to the government. It's supposedly an honor system. Heh, yeah, an honor system where dishonor puts you in jail. Aiken, I wonder what your experiences...

Government pays $115 I wish you would say, "Taxpayers pay $115". The government is not employed and has no income or money of its own. When the government pays for something, it's because it took money from taxpayers to do it. This is an important distinction, because some day down the ro...

The health care industry is full of bloated charges and expenses because, hey, the insurance company is paying for it - not the patient... I know some doctors. That's certainly not why. The insurance companies actually force them to accept less than they want to charge. When you get a cash discount...

I've lived in Canada. I'll never voluntarily go back to universal health "care". If you don't pay someone yourself, either through your insurance or your pocketbook, they treat you like an inconvenience and not like a patient. If the government is paying, the government is the one to be ke...