Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

I stopped coffee and diet drinks (~200-250 mg caffeine per day) and had a ~60% reduction in my RLS symptoms... I've been sleeping so much better and pain is way down. Right now I have a cup of decaf every morning and some chocolate daily (~15-20 mg caffeine).

For those who have responded well to caffeine removal... has it been worth it to go all out and remove any and all caffeine from your diet?

Thanks

It's well known that caffeine can be trigger for RLS and you have shown how much you have benefited.

It is always worth trying to remove all caffeine and see what results. I only drink decaffeinated coffee and water. occasionally a little chocolate and i make sure it is quality chocolate.... So every bite counts

Polar Bear wrote:It's well known that caffeine can be trigger for RLS and you have shown how much you have benefited.

It is always worth trying to remove all caffeine and see what results. I only drink decaffeinated coffee and water. occasionally a little chocolate and i make sure it is quality chocolate.... So every bite counts

Have you tried dropping your decaf and chocolate... did you notice any difference? Thanks for the reply.

I'm experimenting with a lot of things right now and I'm trying to start at the top (most beneficial from research/anecdotal stories) and working my way down.

No I still have decaffeinated in the morning. Chocolate is not a daily thing and usually a couple of pieces from my husband.
Good luck with your experimentation.

I stopped coffee except decaf decades ago. Luckily chocolate seems to make no difference even after a large dose of a "death by chocolate" type dessert.

I can't have any caffeine. I can get away with some chocolate, just not the good chocolate. I hate ot, but I'd rather sleep.

I stopped all caffeine. It is horrible for me and can cause pain symptoms who are difficult to treat, even with opioids and marijuana. So I rather avoid it completely.

Chocolate was highly problematic, too but since I am using medical marijuana, I tolerate it a bit better but still: I maybe buy chocolate twice per month.

That I have to completely avoid caffeine sucks because I kind of really like caffeine. But I will admit: with the iron tablets, especially my pain related symptoms are almost completely gone now. So I will give it another try. I suspect that the pain won't be a problem anymore but I can easily see it triggering insomnia again. Even now I have 1,5 days on average per week where I have insomnia and can't sleep.

QyX wrote:I stopped all caffeine. It is horrible for me and can cause pain symptoms who are difficult to treat, even with opioids and marijuana. So I rather avoid it completely.

There may be a lectin issue. http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/ ... offee.html. No hard evidence though.

I have marked back pain since last November. Incidentally this was where I drank more coffee than usual, including some instant coffee. Could be a coincidence of course. Still, quitting the coffee seems to make a difference. And of course coffee always seemed to work as a laxative for me, which could be interpreted as a sign that our body want's to get rid of something it doesn't like.

Black tea is no big deal so I don't think I have a caffeine issue.

Well... I dropped the decaf yesterday. Still having some chocolate each day. Definitely feel more tired today, which is weird since its such a small amount of caffeine, but hey I also know that I'm a hyper responder to caffeine based on my genetic testing. I slept over 8 hrs tonight and just want to take a nap

I've never tried to drop it all. I am certain that having coffee every day makes my symptoms worse. I think it's possible that having it less frequently, say 2 days out of 5, or 2/7, is not harmful. But I can't really tell.

I've never seemed to have a problem with chocolate but I don't eat large amounts of it and I subconsciously avoid it in the evenings.

Eliminating caffeine made no difference at all to my symptoms. I actually find that when symptoms strike in the night a cup of coffee - fully caffeinated - can sometimes help. On another rls forum there are a number of posters who have noted this. I'm not sure why this would be but wonder if it is something to do with adenosine receptors ... Unfortunately, caffeinated coffee does interfere with sleep for me but I would much rather be awake without rls than being dragged from sleep over and over again by it.

I do believe chronic caffeine consumption causes issues. It’s something I need to move away from. However, I’ve read that the tanin’s in tea inhibit iron absorption.

I skimmed these articles just for reference so don’t shoot me if there are some holes; however, the research is out there.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5998341/
https://gut.bmj.com/content/43/5/699

Interesting about the tea/tannins.
For 50+ years I have taken my tea black, without milk.
At present it's only about two cups daily, the rest of the time I take decaf coffee.
The second link says that iron was reduced by about 1/3 by the tea drinkers.
I'm surprised that it was as much as 1/3.

Fascinating. I've been a lifelong tea drinker. But so is my father, who doesn't have RLS. RLS is hereditary in my fathers side though, my little brother doesn't drink tea but has RLS.

If there should be two classes of main RLS causes (as sketched in viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10791), the ones that have a general iron deficiency and the ones that have enough iron but either transport to the brain or something else in the metabolism is impaired, then this could be a contributing factor for true deficiencies. Would be interesting to see if iron IVs work better for tea or red wine drinkers with RLS than for people who don't drink either.

Reminds me a bit of the oxalate talk. The link seems to be calcium though. Oxalate binds calcium, tannins impair calcium absorption. Not sure if there is a connection, but may be worth checking out.

polar bear wrote:The second link says that iron was reduced by about 1/3 by the tea drinkers.
I'm surprised that it was as much as 1/3.

The people being tested all had hemachromatosis. The results might be different for people without it.