I recently joined this forum, because I have struggled with RLS for around 10 years now, and in this time have learned some coping mechanisms which actually work!
I am now 27, when i was 17 I first began getting restless legs at night occasionally. At age 22 I began putting on a little weight, and so at 23 I took up running to take control of my weight gain. Over several months I got to the stage where I was running 5 miles daily, which made me feel great and helped me lose weight, but also for the first time made my RLS into a daily ordeal.
Previously the issue only flared up now and again, but following taking up running, the issue became a nightly (and sometimes daily) problem. When I was 17-19 I would sometimes do a sprint to alleviate the irritation in my legs, or get on my family's exercise bike, put it on a very resistant setting and pedal as hard as I could until I could go no more, which would work sometimes too, but not every time.
When at 23 things became unbearable, and I was finding myself exhausted yet unable to sleep because of the problem, I decided to break down the issue into its component parts. I was tired physically and mentally, and ready to relax and sleep, but the muscles in my legs were not letting me. So what was the answer? I found that anti-histamines did not help, they made me even more groggy, but did not stop the muscles in my legs from wanting to be used constantly. Muscle relaxers just knocked me out, and that was just overwhelming drugged up sleep, not the natural rhythm of life which I want. My leg muscles were saying 'USE ME USE ME USE ME!' while nothing else in my body was. So I decided to try a few exercises which would use just those muscles so I could relax.
The most effective thing I have found for dealing with RLS is just completely burning out the muscles in my legs with very simple (and totally free!) exercises. The one I started with was as follows:-
Lock yourself in the bathroom, or somewhere you wont be looked at like a nutcase. Then, get on tiptoes, and keeping your back completely straight and upright, bend your knees a little, until you lower yourself to the point where you can feel the irritated muscles starting to burn a little. This can just be a small bend of the knees, or right down to a 90 degree angle knee-bend. Then just hold that position until your legs are totally burned out! It takes a little self-discipline, but if you do this exercise WHILE the RLS is irritating your legs, it is just so satisfying to obliterate that agitated feeling - its like scratching a really bad itch, and making it go away. I find that counting while I do it helps alot, initially I went to 30, and then after a while was up to 100. After so many years unable to defeat the irritation, this little squat exercise (if I held it for long enough) felt so satisfying. It felt like I was obliterating, annihilating the irritating monster in my legs. Often after this exercise my legs felt wobbly and light after releasing it, but it was SO SO SO worth it to have the RLS symptoms gone, and to be able to lie down with all of my body relaxed and ready to sleep, and my legs so burned out that they couldn't do anything to stop it.
This first exercise worked great for a while for me, but as it is an exercise which burns out leg muscles, it is therefore also an exercise which builds them too. So after a while you have to go lower and hold the squat for longer to get the same burn-out effect. I got to the stage with the first leg exercise where I was holding the squat very low and counting to 300, and still not being properly burned out, so I needed a new one. Also, I simply didnt have the patience to wait that long for relief.
The second exercise (which I now use exclusively) is the wall-sit. It involves holding my back against a study wall, with my upper legs horizontal infront of me, and my lower legs vertical to the floor, as if I am a human chair set against the wall. In this exercise my upper legs take the full strain of my body weight, and although it is much harder to do than the first squat exercise, it is infinitely more satisfying and destroys the RLS symptoms more effectively than anything else I have tried. To see a diagram of this exercise do a google image search for 'wall sit'. I now count to over 100 seconds while doing this exercise, but it works, and I am very grateful.
I have also made adjustments to my lifestyle to cope with RLS. I dont run at all anymore, instead I walk 2 miles a day, and am much more focussed on diet to lose weight. I have to still take anti-histamine medication for my allergies, but have found that the wall-sit is enough to cope with any medication-provoked flare-ups. I keep a normal routine - bed at 11 and up at 8 every day, and I find that if I have excessive stress or constantly broken routines, that tends to make RLS flare up worse than usual, so taking life a bit easier than normal is also a massive help.
I would be glad to hear any thoughts or input
Jimmi