RLS?

[Claes]

Hi all,

I have intermittent problems, mostly in my feet and legs but at times I've had it all over. In the legs it's all sorts of neurologic small issues you could think of: tingling, burning, crawling, a feeling of pressure, poor temperature sensation, coldness. I don't feel that I have to move the legs irresistibly but I have to get up and walk intermittently to relieve the symptoms and my legs usually jump by themselves quite a bit. It gets worse when I'm tired and if I concentrate on the feeling it gets worse. Especially the burning which on one (not so pleasant) occasion spread over my entire body. I also get a tingling feeling over the head and I have little burning areas over the whole body (not at the same time) which are (in contrast with the other burning) sensitive to touch. There is typically an area about 2 inches long or so that burns for about 2 days and then goes away. It can be months with very little symptoms and then it comes back for unclear reasons and disappears again. I've been completely at a loss as to what it might be, which my physicians have also been. I take Remeron at night so I don't have much trouble sleeping although I have had in the past, if I forget to take Remeron I notice because I can't go to sleep... Does this sound like RLS?

Thanks in advance,
Claes

[ViewsAskew]

Hi Claes,

I hope you find more information from some other people, but here's my quick take on it. RLS can be so different for people. Many people have pain. I always go back to the 4 criteria - do you get strange sensations (could include pain), does it go away with movement, does it occur at rest, does it occur at night? If you can say yes to those, then it's RLS. The other stuff may be your body's way of experiencing RLS or something on top of it. Maybe someone else will weigh in with a better answer.

Ann

[Claes]

Thanks for your reply. My problems go away more or less completely if I move, if I work out or even just move around I typically don't feel anything at all. The day I found your website I decided to have another look on the Internet to try to find out what was wrong, I had refrained from doing this since earlier attempts hadn't turned anything up and it usually only ended me up in distress (because of all the other things I found). I was tested for MS and have had MRI on the back because my neurologist thought it might be the back, nothing there though. It sure didn't look like MS or borrelia because it doesn't get much worse over time, it comes and goes and it's pretty much the same things that recur. I had come across RLS earlier but the descriptions that I had seen didn't seem to match. This time however I search for "burning legs" because that's the problems that I have right now (with a batch of other weird sensations including some pain). I'm a scientist and because of this I sit and read and write quite a bit and the last days I had tried walking and reading because sitting drove me nuts. It's very periodic for me, some periods I have almost no problems at all... stress and fatigue makes it worse as well. I also did have a lot of "growing pain" when I was a child. I was pretty frustrated because it felt like I was the only person in the world with these unexplainable weird sensations. The burning areas I mentioned I think might be something else, my mother has them too and I've had them for a very long time.

Claes