Tourette's with RLS

[sami]

Hi,

I have been diagnosed with RLS about a year and a half ago. I wonder if it is really RLS. Some of the symptoms appear to be but I am now getting a Tourette's jerking with my head. While sitting periodically my head will do a good jerk.....usually to the right. My medication is Requip taken at night. My question is: Do any of you here on the forum experience a Tourette's jerk?
Thank You for your input

[ksxroads]

Dear Sami,

I experience jerks of the head and shoulder from time to time. I do not have Tourettes but I will say I have looked at that many times over the past years. My daughter experiences many more uncontrolable jerks... my one son had a pecking at the feather pillow tick ... these little qirks that can be seen as Tourettes... Yet never a diagnosis... Which in my limited mind I saw as many of these syndromes, illnesses may have a common relationship... central nervous system is one, as possibly endrocine system and in particular the adrenals... I don't know.

Just yesterday coming down in the elevator at work, that can't explain it out of no where shoulder head jerk...startles you and you think where the heck did that come from!

Hazel

[ViewsAskew]

Sami, that's an interesting question. I also have some odd episodic jerks since I started on the dopamine agonists. The jerks did reduce quite a bit when I stopped taking the DAs but I still have a few now and then, but nothing like a tic.

Both of these are movement disorders and both are is the same part of the brain and both of them implicate brain chemistry. . .hmmmm.

Did you have any of these before the Requip? I haven't heard or it, but maybe it is somewhat responsible. The problem with these drugs is that there isn't 40 years of experience with our population to go on in terms of side effects. We have a few years, but only in the last two years have substantial populations been using them.

Ann

[Walking After Midnight]

sami, I saw you were from my home state and wanted to respond.
Welcome to the rls discussion board.


My wife Tami swears I have tourettes because at times the RLS in my arms will make me do some pretty weird looking stuff. It comes on real quick...like a jerk. Just sitting there, minding my own business and I can feel the RLS sensations in my arms starting to build till it reaches that point when something has to be done about it and all the sudden POW...I'll just jerk my arm out and shake a few times. It helps but I can see her out of the corner of my eye looking over at me. heh. Well, actually she doesn't look that much anymore.
I was wondering if you can feel the jerk coming on or it just comes outta nowhere.

Again, welcome to the Board. You're gonna get lots of help here...and if nothing else, lot's of sympathy and compassion.

[Guest]

Hi,

I have been diagnosed with RLS about a year and a half ago. I wonder if it is really RLS. Some of the symptoms appear to be but I am now getting a Tourette's jerking with my head. While sitting periodically my head will do a good jerk.....usually to the right. My medication is Requip taken at night. My question is: Do any of you here on the forum experience a Tourette's jerk?
Thank You for your input

I am not sure how to respond to each of the notes that have been sent to me so I will do it this way.
Thanks each of you for your reply. I have been on Requip for about 2 months now. I just started having the head jerking several weeks ago ...it seems to be coming on more frequent now. Several times a day or more. I did not realize that RLS had so many affects such as the painful, burning feet. Feels like electrical shocks going thru them. Leg cramps, crawly feeling like little worms. I have noticed that I will get painful shocking feeling in my feet or foot just before the hard head jerk. I can feel the jerking coming a few seconds after the foot shock. Also I have had body jerking for along time, this is when I am lying down. The legs and thighs will tighten up when walking like a rubber band. My doctor says to do exercise for that?????? Seems like the doctors just are not all that concerned.

[ViewsAskew]

You know, if none of this happened before the Requip, I'd ask the doctor to take you off of it for a few weeks. If the RLS is too terrible to bear being without any medication, you could try an opioid or an anti-seizure med during that time. I wouldn't try a different dopamine agonist just in case there is something about that class of drugs that is causing these things.

I never had the stinging or the jerks until I took Mirapex, a similar drug to Requip. When I stopped it, most of it went away, but not all. I have some of the bee stings in my feet as I type this. This is a form of neuropathy, as I understand it, but I'm sort of convinced that these drugs and RLS can cause some of this stuff to happen.

Ann

[ViewsAskew]

I just saw a Pub-Med article that Tourette's patients had lower serum ferritin levels than controls. The hypothesis is that this may lead to the development of more tics.

Doesn't really prove anything or create any correlations, but I found it quite interesting that both these movement disorders involve serum ferritin.

[Kimberly]

Over the course of many years, my RLS began to be accompanied by sudden jerking....I have always described my RLS as the build up to a sneeze, and the jerking movement the 'kachoo'. I was told that this is PLMD. Usually, PLMD occurrs at night, however, my PLMD is so severe that the jerking prevents me from falling asleep. The combination of RLS and PLMD is tortuous and for me lasts from about 6pm until about 10pm every night. The PLMD continues to prevent me from getting any REM sleep during the 4 hours I sleep each night since 1998. My day usually begins at about 2am.

I occassionally get a sudden tic that forces uncontrolled, repetitive movement in my shoulders, back and neck, but recently, however, I have suddenly begun having tremors in my forearms and hands, along with the sudden onset of stammering in my speech. This sudden onset occurred after an afternoon of shopping, when I stayed too long and did too much. (I also have Fibro). There is a history of mild Turrettes in my family, but no Parkinsons that I am aware of. I do not take Requip, I tried it 4 years ago and it only prolonged the onset of my 'torture time'. My shaking and stammering waxs and wanes, and I have noticed it worsens during times of anxiety/stress. I recently had my SSD hearing and was so overwhelmed that I could not sit still in the chair, my hand could not control a pen to write and my communication with the judge was impaired by stammering...just can't spit out the words. I am wondering if either or both of these symptoms are in any way related to the PLMD, just manifesting itself in a different way. My sister, who's sons have tourettes, has been an advocate...is convinced these symptoms of tourettes. I have been referred to a movement disorder specialist now, rather than a sleep disorder specialist. I need answers.

I've been on a combiniation of 900mg neurontin and .50 mirapex, twice in the evenings for many years. I also take xanax for panic/anxiety.

Kimberly

[nancyhugh]

Ther is a condition called tardive dyskinesia which can be caused by DAs. It is characterised by involuntary movements. Look it up on wikipedia or google it. Could be that.