I just had 3 or 4 wonderful months of no RLS symptoms, but I have little idea why. I moved in March and immediately a couple of things changed:
1) I went on a lower carb diet because I couldn't fit in my new pants again.
2) Spring allergies hit with a vengance here in the East USA.
3) I double dosed on the Claratin (loratadine) to ditch the itch & goo.
Like I said, my legs and arms hardly jumped at all since then. And I lost a couple of inches, too. But suddenly, the last couple of days, everything is back to the same old awful, uncontrollable energy twitching. I think it's because I have pretty much reversed the above conditions:
1) I got terrible heartburn and read that eating higher fiber would help -- welcome back carbs!
2) Spring pollen is almost all gone.
3) I'm not taking Claratin as much.
So, now I sleep during the day when I'm supposed to work. And my spare tire came back.
Anyone else find that lowering carbs (no "white foods" -- bread, pasta, corn chips, potatoes, etc) helped in any way? (One other forum said yes, probably so.) Or does anyone use Claratin to relieve allergy symptoms and find that RLS lessens? (Another forum said they thought Claratin made things worse.) Or nuttier still, does pollen make RLS ignorable?
I'm more than happy to pop Claratin/Loratadine every other day or so to sleep better if that does the trick. Or if I have to eat bacon, nuts, and hot dogs all the time, then I'll do my best to get away from wheat & sugar. Pollen... I'd rather do without.
Thnx. I'm off to pop a loratadine needlessly(?). I'll experiment with that for a while and see if it makes a difference by itself. Then maybe I'll switch and see if going low carb again is any kind of solution. Sadly, I have no scientific discipline for this.