Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

For the past few weeks, I've been trying out a new raw diet from Aajonus Vanderplantiz and it seems to have helped the WED a little. I also do not eat any grain. I went from 3 hours a night, waking up 2 times a night to 4.5 hours a night and only waking up once within a week. Granted it's not ideal, but getting 4.5 hours a night compared to 3 is a HUGE difference!!!!! Interestingly enough the WED has calmed down a great deal, but am dealing more now with good ole insomnia.

Getting more sleep--last night 7 hours--sure as hell beats 3 hours a night, YAY!!!!

7 hours sleep is fabulous. And is your wed also behaving itself.

Yes, it's doing much much better. I'm eating mostly organic raw vegetables, some cooked vegetables, fished cooked with organic raw lemon, seeds, nuts and some organic fruit. I know it sounds boring, but the main thing is that I'm sleeping much better. Last 2 nights 7 hours with some waking, but going right back to sleep.

Sleep was not as good this week: 4 hours per night waking 1 time in the middle of the night-- I was hopeful that this diet would help my overall health and I had figured the sleep would go back and forth IF the health was improving, but CRAP!!! Time will tell if this is true or not.

Good luck.

Let us know how it goes, & thanks for being a guinea pig

It's helped a little bit, but I'm still sleeping poorly. Also being treated for adrenal exhaustion.

What's really weird is that I have seen a remarkable improvement with the RLS symptoms, but the insomnia that accompanies it, has gotten a lot worse. It's like if I don't get to sleep by 3 am, I will be up all night. So if I go to bed at 11 and get to sleep at 11:30 and wake up at 2:30 due to rls symptoms, I damn well better get to sleep by 3 or I will be up the rest of the night whether the RLS symptoms subside or not. Has anyone else had this type of weird reaction? I'm think I'm going to write another post on it. Either way, the diet has helped get me a little more sleep on a regular basis. Once in a while like with Daylight savings time and storms that kept me up, I will crash and get 3 hours a night or less. But overall the diet has definately helped.

Have been keeping a sleep diary and I can see that the sleep has been improving little by little. Was initially getting 3 hours a night, now it's no less than 4 hours a night, sometimes it averages 5 hours a night. For me, the gabapentin and other parkinson's drugs made my condition much worse. Was intially getting 4 hours a night and could eat some grain (just a tiny bit in the am). Got on 600 mg. of gabapentin for 2 months and then it was ineffective. doctor wanted me to triple it (after doubling it after a month) and I balked. I then got myself off the med very slowly, but sleep tanked to 2 hours a night, 5 hours on the weekend. It was a very difficult time as I was working a new job and coudn't take much sick time off. Finally was diagnosed with neuropathy and sleep got a bit better. I averaged 5 hours a night with taking clonazepam 1/2 of .05 dose about 3 times a week. Got with the naturalpath and went on a ton of supplements, sleep was 6-8 hours a night and the anxiety left--also no clonazepam. After 6 weeks had to cut down on the supplemets and started averaging 3 hours a night. Now I'm up to averaging 4.5-5 per night, primarily with diet and working with some supplements such as flaxseed oil, black seed current oil, the usual calcium, and omega 3. Naturalpath is treating me for adrenal exhaustion which he thinks affects the WED.

Some of us use a Zeo (google it) to track our sleep. I find it really helpful.

even tho your sleep is better, it's clearly not enough. I wish it would improve for you

I suffered from insomnia for 9 months after I found medication that worked on the RLS/WED symptoms! until I was put on zopiclone. Whether it was the meds themselves causing the insomnia, or part of the progression of the disease, I don't know; but 9 months was a long-enough experiment, so I'm sure it wasn't going to go away.

No it's not enough, but my hope is that being clean ie eating well and or me no medication that I can heal from the drugs that made it worse in the first place. And it IS getting better and unlike last year NOT worse right after the meds!!!!! If I can get back to where I was over a year ago, I will be sleeping pretty damn well on my own. The WED will still be there but there will be no side effects from the drugs. If I didn't think the drugs would make it worse, I would go ahead and take the meds. But since I don't know which drugs work and which ones don't, I can't take that chance.

As far as I am aware the opiates (with the exception very very rarely of Tramadol) will not have any negative effect on WED symptoms.

I've thought about this a lot....

Other than augmentation (which isn't supposed to be permanent*), there is no proof that drugs make this worse. I think many of us think they have.

There are people who went from non-existent WED to severe WED in a few weeks or months - no meds involved. There are others who have mild WED their entire lives and it never changes. There are people who take meds for mild or moderate WED and it never changes. Others of us take meds and find we have worsened symptoms.

I can't think of any way for any of us to know what caused it when it gets worse - meds, not meds. I haven't done a research review in quite awhile, though. To my knowledge (admittedly lacking), I've not seen anything that indicates that drugs ever, besides augmentation, can be said to make WED worse.

Have you seen anything, peanut1, that suggests that drugs can worsen it?