Affects of surgery

[tbc27143]

I am new here and glad to have found others that can relate to this nuisance problem we suffer from.

My dad had RLS for years and no one had a clue about it. He, and the family, all thought it was just leg cramps. After I heard about RLS a few years ago, very few, I realized what he suffered from was the same as what I was suffering from. My two sons have early stages of it and they are in their 20's. RLS is heriditary.

I took a couple of different anxiety or depression medications like many of you probably did and it didn't do a lot for me but did help me sleep some but not without the kicking around that my wife always told me about or the woke me up during the night.

I recently talked to the doctor about Requip. Amazing difference in my leg aches and cramps. It helps put me to sleep and keeps the waking up from restless legs down to a min. He prescribed it for 3 times a day which is actually the dose for parkinsons. It made me want to sleep all day. I got him to change it to a one time a day dose at night.

Recently I had othoscopic surgery on my right knee. Afterwards, immediately afterwards, I started having the aches and pains during the day. Previously it was a night only. They were more severe. On the night after the surgery I had to go to the emerg. room because of excessive bleeding and while there my right leg start aching more than I have ever had it ache. It was about to drive me nuts. I finally had them get me a Requip because mine was at home. It settled down in about an hour. After that for several days I have had RLS episodes more often than normal. It has now been 3 weeks since the surgery and they have finally calmed down a lot.

I never expected the reaction that I had following surgery. The Requip has been a God send for me. I hope that when the time comes for a knee replacement that I don't have the reaction I had with the orthoscopic. It might be worse with knee replacement if what I had is exstrapolated based on the more severe nature of the surgery.

Have any of you had similiar experiencse with this.

[ViewsAskew]

Surgery sometimes makes RLS worse for some reason. But, sometimes pain meds after surgery help, eliminating RLS. So, you just don't know.

I hope that it stays calm now that you are recovering. I remember when I had some emergency abdominal surgery the RLS was fine for two, three days, then they took me off the pain meds. I spent the next 5-6 nights walking the hospital corridors at 2, 3, 4 AM dragging my IV pole around with me and hugging my gut, lol.