Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

Hello!

I am interested in how long you people sleep, when you sleep. Right now I am trying some long acting formula of Pramipexol. As a consequence I am sleeping > 10 hours per night and also 2-3 hours during the day. This is bad and it is stealing a lof of time I don't have. So I am going back to short acting.

In general I am interested if there is a relationship between the sleep duration and RLS/WED symptoms. At the moment I am suspecting that it is a good idea not to sleep too much and avoid sleeping more then one hour during the day.

I noticed that I can benefit from lying down for only 15 minutes and falling into some kind of half sleep. Sometimes I get the impression that I am dreaming without sleeping. When I get up I feel rested and can focus/study again.

Looks like that too much sleeping is taking away energy, motivation and the good mood.

I am trying to figure out how long I really do need to sleep but this seems to be a complicated thing.

I have the opposite experience as you, as far as sleep goes. My sleep is uasually about 20min a night. Sometimes broken up but lately thankfully it's mostly been at once. Occassionally I get only 5 min and sometimes (last week) I'll get a couple of days in a row with an hour (I drugged myself to the point of passing out). I am pretty much wore right out now. I used to talk on here alot but I literally have no energy to do even that these days.
I also find about 20 min to be the magic number--I feel somewhat refreshed if I get that. I feel jet-lagged if I get an hour--(which is by the way completely normal). The sleep dr told me it was because after that time your body is trying to drop into stage 2 and is not ready to awaken--(something like that--memory--you get the idea)
Don't know if it's of any help but hope you feel better soon.

Qxy, right now I'm getting about 8 hours. When my WED/PLMD is bad then I get as little as 2 to 4 hours. That's too little for me. I just can't function.

rthom, I didn't realize that you were getting so little sleep. I don't see how you can keep that up.

I am not doing well at all, but for me it's this or being drugged to walking zombiness and it's just not something i can do. Sometimes I am sure i won't make it till morn.

It certainly seems as if there is no good solution for you. I continue to hope you find one.

QyX
I go back and forth on that all the time!!

I also became very sleepy from pramipexole - regular, not long-acting. I had to stop taking it regularly after 3 weeks, because it caused as much loss of functionality as the disease itself.

When I sleep less, my symptoms get worse, which makes it harder to sleep etc vicious circle. Any kind of stressor is likely to make the symptoms worse, including the symptoms themselves ( nip them in the bud by moving) and lack of sleep (impossible to deal with without medication, if things get bad enough).

I feel like my days and nights are backwards, but it's largely because of the alerting effect my opioid medication has on me, combined with the hyper-alertness that is a component of the disease and is worse at night. I tend to be groggy and tired all day (though unable to sleep because of symptoms), then become alert around 10 or 11 PM. I have tried balancing my meds so I get lots of sleep, but I find even after 11 hours of sleep that doesn't seem very broken, I am ready to sleep again after being up 3 hours. The big question is: Do I let myself sleep, becuase if I do this for 3-4 days then my body will finally have what it needs? Or do I stop myself from sleeping and jolt myself into awakeness somehow because it's a fake tiredness and my body really doesn't need more sleep? That's the perpertual question I've never been able to answer. (And I don't know how to jolt myself. Coffee doesn't work anymore, and after a few weeks it makes my symptoms worse.)

RLS/WED is definitely associated with a hyper-alertness that keeps us going on an appallingly small amount of sleep. We might not feel very good, or be cognitively sharp, but we keep on truckin'. In a way you could regard that as benefit of the disease, a compensation of sorts. (That's looking really hard for a silver lining, isn't it?) But being in a semi-sleep where you still hear what's going on but it's mixed with dreams and things, that's typical of my experience when my WED sensations are medicated but the hyper-alertness is not. i.e. the hyper-alertness causes that kind of insomnia. I take a mild sleeping aid (zopiclone) otherwise I will spend the whole night like that.

Re dreaming without sleeping, that and other wierd things happen when you're really tired, like chronically sleep-deprived. You fall straight into paralyzed nightmares that are so real you think you're awake. You hallucinate visually and auditorially (sp?). You have hypnic jerks. It makes getting some sleep even harder. Again, if things get that bad, you might need medication (for the WED sensations and/or a sleeping aid ) to break the pattern.

Great explanation of it all!!
Your info about the chronic sleep deprivation is a great reminder to me of how tired I really am, thanks for the reminder.
What is [You have hypnic jerks.]?

hypnic jerks are involuntary muscle contractions that happen just as you're falling asleep.They wake you up. Apparently they are supposed to be accompanied by a falling sensation, but mine aren't usually. (I've also had them happen later in the night, but probably I was "falling asleep" then too; my sleep is heavily disrupted.) For me, they commonly come as part of a dream, but I don't realize I'm dreaming - I think I'm just thinking - until my jerking arm or leg wakes me up. I've also had my whole body arch into the air, and I've punched myself in the fact. No serious damage, though

ok, ty--i get that alll the time. I ctually strain muscles that way some times, or fall out of bed. lol Hurts for days sometime--but I always took it as a good sign, like I must be in dep sleep to do that? Hmm? Glad you told me.

I just looked it up quickly, and some places say it only happens when you're in the falling-asleep stage, but other pages say it can happen during the night too. I know I've had it during the night.

when I'm falling asleep, I have to be careful not to think of playing net, especially not imagining ball-blocking movements... my body will kick if I imagine a kick, etc.

i can relate--i learned early on not to be thinking about anything i don't want to go on, all during my sleep to.