I've had RLS since 1983. It started when I was pregant with my son. After he was born it seemed to go away for a few years only to return with a vengeance around 1988. It has been with me ever since. For years, I would dread bedtime, wondering if 'it' was going to leave me alone or not.
Around 1994 I became pretty involved in karate and would get pretty sore from working out. I would occassionally take ibuprofen for the soreness and noticed that on nights when I took it my legs did not bother me. So, I started to take ibuprofen every night as a test and found that the RLS left me alone more than 90% of the time. I continued taking it until, after ten years, I found that it was getting a little rough on my stomach. I reluctantly switched to enteric coated aspirin a couple of years ago and discovered it to be equally effective.
To my great dismay, I eventually developed ulcers, perhaps related to the ongoing ibuprofen / aspirin use, so I find myself again dreading bedtime. It is worst when I have PMS -- oddly, at the peak of PMS I have the 'restless' symptoms in my upper body as well. I get very little sleep on those nights and nothing really seems to help. That is the worst night of the month for me. Even the ibuprofen didn't stop that.
Despite the ulcers, I do still get up and take a couple of coated aspirins when the symptoms really get to me -- I just take some antacids with it. I also get out of bed to sleep on my stomach on a hard flat surface (such as the floor). I've noticed this position reduces my legs' desire to 'boogie down'. I do this when I'm desparate and I just can't stand to have anything touching my legs.
I don't know if any of this will be useful to anybody here, but I feel better just 'talking' about it in a place where people actually understand what it means to have legs that want to get up and do a polka in the middle of the night.
BTW/FYI, St. John's Wart made it worse, but I am going to try the Valerian Root to see if that helps. Thanx for the tip.