Medical Column - Local Paper

[Polar Bear]

My attention has just been drawn to a medical column in today's local Sunday paper, as follows:

Q:
I suffer from restless legs syndrome and my husband is at the end of his tether. What can I do to help this?

A:
Restless legs syndrome can affect up to 10% of adults and is a sensation that makes you want to stretch aching legs.
There is no known cause although it seems to be more common in women of a certain age.
In the first instance try two Paracetamol tablets before going to bed. If that doesn't work take a course of iron tablets for a month as this often works.

What do other members think of this medical response.
I know that it is 'just' a medical column but I feel it doesn't do much to help this lady.

[badnights]

It super sucks! If you can spend the time, it would be very worthwhile to write a short, well-thought-out, sharp criticism and correction. It not only does the lady a disservice, it misinforms whoever reads the paper as well. And we sure don't need more of that.

[ViewsAskew]

Oooooo that makes me shudder. I hope that woman has the sense to do a bit more investigating before following the advice.

I see responses like that on the Internet ALL the time. I used to spend my time finding them and correctly them, lol. Interestingly, people would often not want the correct answer (like in Yahoo questions and they'd pick the answer that said it was all in their heads instead of mine that told them exactly what to do and included links to here and We Move, etc.). I guess you can lead the horse....

[SquirmingSusan]

Is there an online forum for this newspaper? If there is, you could post some better information there. Their response isn't very helpful, that's for sure.

[Polar Bear]

I am certainly considering emailing the doc column, an email addy is given in the column.

Don't know about an on-line forum but will check on that tomorrow.

[Neco]

My understanding is in the UK they always try to tell people to take paracetamol first, like some kind of automatic robot response.

Or at least that's the impression I got from the sarcastic comment I read in my RLS thread on a tech forum I frequent (mostly UK people).


And that is plain stupid advice. Many of us have proven time and again that it just does not work.

[D4]

I've also read many times that you shouldn't take iron on your own without being tested first. It is supposedly a very dangerous substance if you don't need extra iron.

[Polar Bear]

I sent an email to the column 2 days ago saying I didn't agree with the advice given, giving basic information, and providing several links to back up the information, i.e. RLS Foundation home page, Southern California Site, the Mayo Algorithm and referring to Dr Bs book and our own discussion board.

I'll let you know if and when any response is received.

[ViewsAskew]

PB, I mentioned to you and Susan that I see misinformation all the time. I get an alert from Google daily about anything new published on the internet about RLS. Often it's someone asking a Yahoo Question about it....as is this poor person.

I used to write lengthy, detailed responses, providing links to here, We Move, etc. At least 50% of the time, the person would choose an idiotic answer as the correct one, such as that they need to go on a diet or cut out salt, etc.

I'd love to have the energy to continue offering this information...but I just don't. But, I'm so happy that you have done so. If we all take turns helping disabuse people of crazy notions, we'll eventually make a BIG difference.

So, my hat's off to you. Thank you.

[doety]

I applaud all of you for trying to give people the straight scoop. Ann, all your work on telling people about augmentation HAS made a difference. I'm also on a mission to get people to SAY they have Restless Legs Syndrome, and then when people go WHAT?? or I didn't know that was real, you get a chance to educate them. We know there are tons of people out there who are still in agony, and still embarassed to talk about it.

[Polar Bear]

I am also on a mission to spread the word.
Recently I have started to play (use the term loosely) golf and some of the ladies asked me to join them at their usual Tuesday evening practice/coffee/chat. I am the newbie in their group of about 8. Last evening the weather was dreadful and about 5 of us turned up, and decided it should be just coffee and a chat. The other 4 left much wiser with regard to rls, and one of them has the symptoms very occasionally.

[SquirmingSusan]

I post a lot of stuff about RLS out there in cyberspace, certainly can't even begin to cover the bases. It takes all of our efforts. I like PB's idea of having something written up that we can just send when needed. If each of us has one of those then when we find out about misinformation out there, we can all send things as we have time and energy.

Thanks for responding to that, Betty.