Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

Hi. I am new to this board and new to this whole world of RLS. My three year old was just diagnosed after a sleep study confirmed that he was up kicking his legs 183 times and waking up over 20 times from the kicking. We had his iron tested and his ferritin level came back at 26. We started iron therapy last week and are hopeful that it will work. I have been reseraching this syndrome and can find very little about children with RLS. If anyone has any information I would be so appriciative.

Welcome to the board. You must be so concerned about your son. (Oh, I did remove the duplicate post - it confuses members and you end up with people responding in one and not the other and not seeing what other people wrote).

Your doctor or doctors seem on the ball - they tested ferritin right away and put him on iron therapy.

There isn't a lot out there about children and WED. Many of the parents that come here get help and then don't come back once it's under control, so we don't have a lot of people talking about it and what has worked for them.

There is a section on treating RLS in children in one of the books written by Dr Buchfuhrer - RLS: Coping with Your Sleepless Nights.

I have not read the following book, but it might be worth getting used (it's expensive as a new book): http://www.amazon.com/Childhood-Neurolo ... S+children

What do you want to know? It might help us better respond.

For a toddler to have low iron, my first thought would be an intestinal issue, like celiac, crohn's, or other disorder that would interfere with proper digestion.

Also drinking too much milk throughout the day as the calcium binds with iron and prevents it from being absorbed from food.