Hot weather and RLS

[pab628]

It has been extremely hot for about 2 weeks and my RLS is giving me fits. Is yours any worse in hot weather? Also, I fell June 9, really hard from a standing position into my sunken living room (on my posterior portion). I'm okay, still have a little back ache, but could this have made RLS flare up?

[Polar Bear]

I have never found the weather to have any influence on my RLS symptoms and have just return from a holiday where temperatures reached over 100 without noticing any change. However, if I'm having a bad time and need immediate help it would be cold icy water that I'd put my legs into for 'comfort'.

Back injuries (and back surgery) have been known to negatively affect RLS symptoms, whether your unfortunate fall would do so I don't know. Haven't experienced it myself.

[pab628]

Thanks Polar Bear. I also have been to hot places (many times) and didn't notice any acceleration in symptoms. But, I do think Barometric Pressure can affect RLS. Just grasping at straws as to why it's been worse. The fall may have upset my body and the way it functions.

[Rustsmith]

I have seen that some people claim that their RLS gives them more problems during the summer than the other seasons. However, there are probably just as many who do not see any seasonal effect. So, as you see so many times here, we are all different. What functions as a trigger for one person has no effect upon others.

[Yankiwi]

Hot weather at night exacerbates my RLS. I overheat easily and that wakes me up more often while sleeping, almost always with RLS symptoms. However, in winter I can get too hot in the night if I'm not careful. In the daytime it doesn't seem to make any difference.

[Yankiwi]

Hot weather at night exacerbates my RLS. I overheat easily and that wakes me up more often while sleeping, almost always with RLS symptoms. However, in winter I can get too hot in the night if I'm not careful. In the daytime it doesn't seem to make any difference.

[badnights]

I have sometimes wondered about a possible link between back issues and severity. My lower back pain changed to sciatica at the same time my RLS/WED became unmanageable, but so many other things happened at the same time, who knows what caused what. No hard evidence exists to link back issues with severity.

I don't have a link between weather and severity, but if I'm physically stressed in other ways, my symptoms are worse. eg. after an intense workout when I've been sleeping worse than usual - the combination of these two things gives me worse symptoms. Heat is a physical stressor, maybe that's enough on its own or maybe you have something else going on, and combined with the heat it's too much.

[Rcure]

I find the heat of the sun on my legs/arms to help my rls

[EeFall]

I keep the air-conditioner on during most of the colder part of the year so that it stays between about 61 to 63 degrees Fahrenheit in our room at night. During the summer since we get used to the warmer weather I set it to 64 degrees. If I weren't married I would have it set to 60 degrees the whole year. It becomes extremely uncomfortable for me to sleep in anything warmer. Awhile back we stayed in a hotel and it would not go below 67 degrees and I had a terrible restless night. Heat is not a friend to my RLS. Before having air-conditioning my summers were miserable for sleeping, in the winter we would just turn the heat down at night. So yeah, hot weather makes my severe RLS even worse.

I have always been like that as was my older brother, we both seem to be warmer all the time. I can remember my folks and grandparents coming in at night and putting the covers back on me, as soon as they left I would take them off again. Probably one reason over exercising also messes me up, anything like that that makes me sweat will carry over to my sleep at night even if I have exercised several hours earlier. The strange thing is that my temperature is always around a degree lower than normal.