I just like to go to a doctor with as much info in my brain as possible. If nothing else, it lets me identify a useless doctor so I can move on.
Also let me say that I'm terribly wordy by nature and I'll forgive anyone who can't get all the way though this.
Now...
For the last year and a half, I've had a slowly-increasing electric sort of sensation in my right hip and leg, mostly in the evening and night. It's kinda like what happens if you touch the contacts of a 9V battery to your tongue, which most kids do at some point, so I hope that's a useful comparison. I also might call it a physical sensation of urgency, or maybe the feeling you get when you're getting ready to jump or lunge or make some other sudden motion, or the feeling just before you get a shiver up your back or some other sudden twitch.
The upper end of the affected area is around my right hip, then down the outside of my leg in a wide swath (maybe 8" wide?) to my knee, below which it mostly peters out, though there's a bit of it all the way down to the foot. Most of the feeling is in my hip and above my kneecap. Sometimes I feel it a little in my middle/upper right body as well, rarely in my shoulder and arm. Starting a month or two ago, it's started happening on the left as well, though much less frequently and much less strongly. The sensation seems to go all the way from the skin to the bone. It bugs me a 2-3 times per week, but the frequency doesn't seem to be getting worse. It's just kinda maddening and I want to move to distract myself from it, though I prefer trying to relax and ignore it.
I don't know if this is what folks here have. If it is, mine is as-yet mild. When it's happening, I do get that brief relief from movement, though I can usually bear it and sit still or manage to get to sleep without thrashing. The urge to move is a conscious choice to mask the discomfort. Movement has never been involuntary. My wife hasn't mentioned any sleep-time movement on my part, but we have a large bed, so that may not mean anything, and she's also used to me moving around a lot before I go to sleep, which I've always done.
The actual onset, about a year and a half ago, either came on abruptly or simply passed a threshold from not being noticed to being noticeable enough to focus on it, which probably made it worse the way that tinnitus gets worse when you think about it. In my memory, I didn't have it, and then I had it. It didn't seem to slowly grow out of some less-offensive sensation.
History:
I'm a 36 year old male.
I had terrible growing pains that I know I often thrashed all night with between the ages of about 4 and 18. Painkillers didn't really help. I remember how it felt because I've always had a certain hip pain with overuse that feels exactly like growing pains. Thus I'm able to compare, and there's actually a similarity, though this new thing isn't remotely as strong.
I've never, ever, ever, been able to sit still. A new position becomes uncomfortable within five to ten seconds. This is a combination of various discomforts, though I think it's mostly skin/muscle discomfort due to pressure from what I'm resting on. Thin-skinned, so to speak. There's some joint pain as well. I imagine most people get uncomfortable eventually, but I've had people comment on my restlessness, so I think it's above average.
I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I don't take anything for this. I got it pretty much under control a few years back by reducing my caffiene intake from rather huge amounts to roughly one 20oz bottle of coke per day. I like to have a little caffiene, or else I feel pretty flat emotionally. I think 20 years of huge doses made my body stop making certain chemicals by itself. I also learned how to calm myself, clear my mind, the sort of thing nobody thinks they need to do until they suddenly realize they need to do it.
I'm still a bit of a worry-wart, but life is quite okay now.
I have had GERD since I was 15, just like my father. It's controlled very well with daily Protonix for about 7 years, and Pepcid for 5 before that. Cutting out the caffiene and being careful about late-night eating didn't hurt either. It used to harm my sleep, but now it's okay. I don't think there's any association.
I have had insomnia ever since I can remember. If I wake up at the same time as someone else, I won't be tired until 3-4 hours after they're tired enough to fall asleep standing. (You can imagine how bad going to bed at 8pm was when I was a kid.) If I go to bed when I'm truly tired, I sleep for 8 hours. Of course, at that point, I'm 4 hours late for work.
If I try to go to bed when everyone else does with my sleep aids (Sonata, amitriptylene, melatonin), I can usually get to sleep, but then I sleep for about 9 1/2 hours and would prefer more. I think I don't sleep properly if I'm not ready for it yet. I just barely manage to fit my day into 24 hours, though I usually miss by 15 minutes or so per day (worse on the weekend) and end up double-dosing the Sonata on Sunday night to reset the clock for the week. This new business with my leg(s) is NOT helping.
One way I get really good sleep is the rare occasion when I need to take Vicodin for a back pain flare-up. Normally, I can't stay comfortable long enough to doze off and it takes multiple iterations of repositioning to get to sleep. Vicodin kills that discomfort, no surprise there, but it also kills this new electric leg thing entirely. I sleep like a baby. Of course, it's an opiate, so I dunno what else I'd expect.
This is probably not a meaningful observation.
Questions:
- Is any of this typical of the initial onset of RLS? I know everyone is uncomfortable if they sit still long enough, everyone needs to move now and then, and so on. Seems like a lot of folks here have terrible, terrible symptoms involving outright pain and sleep deprivation. I'm in discomfort, but nowhere near that. I want to know where I am in the spectrum.
- I saw that antidepressants can be a problem. I've been on amitriptylene for 10 years as a sleep aid, but I know it's really an antidepressant. Is amitriptylene known to affect RLS one way or the other?
- Are any of the following things, which all changed around the time this started, known to by catalysts: Stopped most caffiene; Stopped eating beef (I still get decent iron intake); Started taking Sonata, which is categorized as a hypnotic, by the way; Lost about 30 pounds (from 200 to a fairly healthy 170).
Sorry, I know I'm really verbose. I wanted to cover everything. If anyone got this far, I'd really appreciate any feedback you have. Also, mention of any doctors in the Seattle area (preferably east side) that are known to be wise about RLS would be great. I intend to see my GP, but who knows what he knows?
Thanks...