Antidepressant (Prozac)

[yellow41]

I am 61 and have struggled with RLS for 7 or more years. I have been on Prozac for almost 40 years. With the research I have done I am wondering if Prozac started my RLS. (I also have demographism so a histamine issue too.) I am wanting to know if anyone got off Prozac and found that their RLS got better. I am willing to wean myself off (slowly) if it would help but I do know that it will take me a long time to wean off correctly. I am so frustrated with not sleeping. One night I might have 5-6 hours (wake up and am up for awhile but can at least go back to sleep and get a total of 6 hours) and then the next two/three nights I might have 3 hours of sleep. There is no consistency and I seem to do the same thing everyday so no change in what I eat or do. I would appreciate any thoughts. I do have an appointment with Dr. B but no until November. Thank you so much!

[stjohnh]

Hi Yellow41, I haven't been on Prozac, so can't speak from personal experience. However, it seems like the problems that occur with antidepressants and RLS are mostly confined to the older classes of antidepressants, which does not include Prozac (kinda dates me, I guess).

The sleep issue is common with people who have had RLS for a long time. There are 2 primary areas that RLS affects people: Leg Jumping and Sleep. In the milder cases and for people that have had RLS for a short time (less than a few years), the sleep issue is not so apparent, so that if an RLS patient gets adequate treatment for the jumping feet, they usually sleep ok. As the disease progresses, the sleep issue gets more and more apparent, so that for many people with long standing RLS and people with severe RLS, sleep problems persist, even with adequate treatment of jumping feet (urge-to-move).

[ViewsAskew]

As Holland noted, it isn't terribly common but it can happen. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28822709/