I've never had meds...Occasionally took Advil for the achy legs before pregnancy but now take nothing.
This might or might not help. Sorry it's so long and convuluted but it's a cut and paste from my own weblog. Apologise in advance for the length.
Not all of it might be relevant. Good luck.
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Okay. So the
www.rlshelp.org had gotten way out of control, as I said before. I was getting to the point that I was worried I might do something stupid. It was that desperate.
So, yesterday, the strangest thing. I finally, in desperation with lack of sleep and exhaustion and hysteria agreed to go to the maternity ward and ask for sleeping tablets (yes, I know they're not recommended in pregnancy, but some are in the B category)...anyway, I read something about accupuncture, so I just literally picked a name out of the phone book. It was O(name of town) Accupuncture Clinic. I rang at about 9:45am yesterday. As I spoke to the lady on the phone, for the first time I felt as if someone knew what I was talking about. Anyway, she was brilliant. She agreed to take me at 11am. So, off I went.
When I met her, I have to say, I was on the edge of reason. She said she was a bit limited in what she could do for me because a lot of the accupuncture points she'd normally use were restricted due to pregnancy. She gave me an overall physical exam and said I am very low in Iron. She recommended the following things, some of which I'd figured out on my own...
No dairy
No meat (except fish)
Drink diluted red grape juice
Drink small amounts of rose water (can be found in Middle Eastern shops) in water
Take Spatone which is an Iron supplement which you mix with OJ or juice (not grape juice). It's naturally occurring iron and doesn't give me the horrible stomach I got with Iron tablets. You take one sachet a day (two if you're really deficient) and it's even good for kids. Since it takes about 6 months to build up your iron stores, even if you're not pregnant but want to be, it's not a bad idea to build them up before you get pregnant so you don't wind up like me trying to play catch up. It has a slightly metallic taste which you can't taste at all if you drink it with juice. I can't have OJ so I'll try mine with pear juice.
Eskimo Oil (I'm taking the liquid one which I have to admit tastes horrible!!)
No wheat or gluten
No sugar except small amounts of fruit
No caffeine, sugar, chocolate, tea, sodas, NADA
Magnesium supplements -- this seems to be the major RLS issue
Then she put in the accupuncture needles. No, they don't hurt. I've had loads of alternative (though at the time they were just normal) things like accupuncture when I lived in Japan and I really do believe accupuncture works (if you have someone who knows what they're doing). This time, she put in two points in my head to help control my legs, four in my arms to help to calm me down and two in my legs to promote circulation. Now, I could be wrong about which points correspond to which area. Anyway, she said that my energy (going on my pulse) was quite strong for someone in as much distress as I'm in now. She said overall, she doesn't think this has all affected the baby (Thank Goodness!) and that hopefully she can help me stabilise the RLS and get some rest during pregnancy but that the main thing is wait until the baby is born and try to address the points she couldn't during the pregnancy. She has been the only medical practioner (including the OB --who is the Professor of Ob/Gyn at the Med School, my GP, the massage therapist, the physiotherapist) who knew what I was talking about and didn't confuse RLS with charlie horses and leg cramps which are common in pregnancy. I have ordered a book on RLS called Sleep Thief, and if you're interested, I can tell you about it after I've read it. I'm planning on taking it to my next OB appointment because it's appalling that a pregnant patient tells their doctor they've not slept and are very anxious and distressed and they are told, "Sorry. Nothing you can do."
Anyway, sorry to be blathering on. I'm just so relieved to have found a possible solution for this horrible curse of RLS. I've had it all my life. At about 7-8yrs old it manifested itself in aching legs during the night which my mom had to wake up and massage and often had one or two hot baths a night. She took me from one doctor to another (and she was one herself) and they all said that I had growing pains and that it'd go away. I grew up and still had them intermittently. I used to always get it premenstrually and if I'd had drink taken. Also, if I was run down or tired or stressed. Since about 20 weeks, it's completely changed how it manifests itself. The best description would be this: Imagine that someone has plugged your groin, pelvis and hips into an electric socket which is sending 500000watts of electricity down your legs. The only relief is to get up and walk around, and you can't lay down or sit down for more than about 10 minutes without this starting up. In fact, the last week at work has been hellish. I've taken to doing all my phone calls and computer work while standing up. There have been times in the car, particularly if I'm the passenger, where I've seriously considered opening the door while the car is moving so I can jump out and run alongside the car. It's an absolutely maddening compulsion to move your legs and stretch them. If you're interested in more about RLS (which is sometimes called a sleep disorder, but often categorised as a neurological movement disorder), I'd be happy to share what I know with you. If you're in the States, Johns Hopkins is the best place for this syndrome. Unfortunately, Ireland is about 30 years behind. My GP, after three visits with this same complaint, finally did some blood work, so if anything comes back low, I'm going to get a full work up. Part of the reason why I'm so upset and distressed is that RLS, like Parkinsons is a movement disorder and as you might remember, my mom had early onset Parkinsons and eventually died young (62) from it. RLS are both neuro movement disorders and a lot of the medication for severe RLS is the same as the meds for Parkinsons. I'm told there's no connection, but I'm going to try to speak to the guy in Johns Hopkins to see what he thinks.
Another thing is that my daughter (age 4.5yrs old) got up this morning at 6:30am crying her legs were sore and I really hope this isn't going to affect her, too. I've started giving her Spatone and mag liquid to see if it helps. If I was a praying sort of person, I'd pray I haven't passed on this curse to her!
Anyway, in women who only get RLS during pregnancy, about 80-90% of sufferers find it goes away completely, usually until subsequent pregnancies. If you've had it like me, since childhood, it will usually get worse during pregnancy but you'll always have it. The two manifestations of it that I've had (the achey and the electric currents which are worse because you have to move, even if it means walking around the sitting room 200x during the night) are curious. To be honest, if I went back to just having the aching intermittently, I could handle it...it's the electric current one that has me in this absolutely horrible state. I've read there is a high incidence of suicide and self-harm in people who are long term sufferers of RLS and it really makes you feel as if you're going mad. I've never experienced anything like it.
I've started swimming and if I go on early sick leave from work, I plan on swimming every single day. Anything to get rid of it. If you know me at all, you'll know that something would have to be very very bad for me to give up sugar, caffeine, chocolate, wheat/gluten and actually WANT to exercise!! I've actually lost weight this week because of the distress and exhaustion. Maybe the weight loss will make the OB concerned enough to actually listen to me. The thing that bugged me the most was his absolute refusal to listen and accept that what I was suffering from was NOT leg cramps, but something altogether different. I'm very lucky to have found the accupuncturist (actually, she's not just an accupuncturist, but that's how I found her) and I hope she'll be able to help me.
After the accupuncture at 11:30am, I didn't have the onset of RLS until about 6pm, after swimming for an hour, I got home and it started up. Which is actually promising because it was usually starting at about 1pm. Those results could be because I was not sitting for long periods of time yesterday. The true test will be how I am on Monday. I'm back to see Dr. R (the accupuncturist) on Thursday and she'll give me another treatment. I'm keeping a food diary, exercise diary and a log of when the attacks happen. Hopefully, this information will help us to figure out what triggers it. I slept last night for about 1 hour from midnight until one and then was up until about 4am and slept until 7am, which is very good for me. That's about twice as long as I was getting before.
I'm going swimming again today to see if it helps. It's hard to know when I'm changing so much at the same time (radically changing diet, exercise and taking supplements) what is actually helping, but I'm so desperate for relief from this that I'm willing to try anything.