RLS and migraine, symptom onset?

[Sara]

Hey, folks--

I know that we've discussed migraine around here on other occasions. But since I'm fighting off my first in YEARS, this is my first chance to really focus on the symptomology between the two... and I was just curious if others have noticed the same thing.

Could be coincidence, but at the very earliest onset of pre-migraine symptoms this evening (a vision disturbance, not quite true "lights"), my RLS also started up. I remember from when I was having mulitple migraines in a week sometimes, that the best thing to do is to get some aspirin (not acetominphen) into my system and get to bed in a dark place. So after a mad but eventually successful scramble to find aspirin products (ironically, I was going to buy more this morning at the store, and our little market was out) and get dinner for my kids, since my husband is flat on his back on the couch sick, too, I ran for the bed.

By that time my RLS was about as bad as it gets already, and throughout the evening when I was dozing and waking, each time I awoke it was still there. It's 11 pm now, and I'm up tending to sick husband and deciding if I need more aspirin or not since (knock on my wooden head) I've not ended up with a full-blown migraine yet. My RLS symptoms are calmed a bit, but still with me, and I think getting worse as I do my pre-bed chores (so I'm probably tired and need to try to get back to sleep.)

But anyway, my question was, for those who have migraine here, have you noticed RLS and migraine symptoms dovetailing like that? Could just have been coincidence. Might be that I got the migraine because I was tired, and so I got the RLS earlier than usual for the same reason, but they're un-"related". But I found it pretty interesting that they just happened to start up at the very same time (almost two hours early for "normal" for me with the RLS.)

Anyone?

Sara

[jrowley]

I think there is something very common in the two. I remember as a little girl my mom putting heat packs on my legs after I played all day and they hurt so bad. Throughout my whole life I have had problems with that if I am on my feet to long the back of my legs would hurt. Not until recently when my husband said I jerk all night did I seek medical attention for it. When I was around fourteen I started getting these horrible headaches, I was sent through all the crazy test for tumors and such for them to place me on elavil, which did do a thing. Then I had a baby and the headaches dissappeared but they came back after my second child a year later. I then went through all the test to be told I need elavil again, however I refussed the elavil because I didn't like how it made me feel and it didn't do anything for the headache anyway. So for the rest of my years I have treated the headaches which have slowly creeped back to a daily thing with a otc pain killer. So basically I think that I have had the rls forever it just didnt show its roar till recently. And I feel that the headache goes along with it because both headaches and rls can be caused from different nerve problems.

[ViewsAskew]

In my family of seven RLSers on my mom's side, only two of us have headaches to any degree. My mom has full migraines, I have only had 2 or 3, but do get what I call minor migraines (need to be in a dark room and a little man is stabbing my eye with an ice pick). These always go away with a few hours sleep and a hefty dose of ibuprofen. I don't recall any RLS occuring at the same time, but I haven't had one in years. Seems to me that when I stopped drinking caffeine 12 or so years ago, most of my headaches stopped.

My mom had also stopped having migraines several years ago. She used to be bedridden for a day or two at times. She never mentioned RLS going along with it, though. Of the other 5 of us that have RLS, none of them have migraines that I know of, but I haven't really asked them. It's just never come up when we talk about the RLS.

Ann

[GaAudrey]

Hi!

I do have migrains, but never related it with my RLS. This is something I'll have to pay attention to, to see if one thing is worse when both are here. This could be interesting! If anyone else relates, please share!

Thanks!
Audrey

[jrowley]

Usually when I get my headaches is in waking in the morning. Well Feb 14th I take my sleep test for rls and plms so I will know for sure if I have it. I am pretty sure I do cuz I have all the symptoms and signs of both dieases. So maybe the headache realationship comes from the plms and because of the restless sleep or jerky sleep through the night I wake with the headache that carries on through the day. See I dont quite understand where ppl are up all night because I dont wake in the night from it but I do know that I have been jerking all night when I get up in the morning cuz my legs ache and I am exhausted (like i got hit by a mac truck), well and not to mention the hubby telling me I jerked all night But Never has it kept me from sleeping or what I should say I think I am sleeping. I wake up more threw the night from my interstitial cystitis cuz I have to go to the bathroom.

[becat]

Just wanted to start with a big thanks to Sara.....Read your post ealier today and used it as a "mind busy work" this afternoon at a doctor's appt. for one of my boys. I knew it would be a long wait....so having something to think apart was awesome. Rainy and cold today, so the achey feelings are sticking around. Also, Sara I do hope your house is healing today. Not only the hubby, but you too.
Miagraines ....ewwwwwww I hate them. I've had them since I was in high school. Painful ones and the non-pain types. Until, 7-8 yrs. ago it was thought that I was the only one in my family that had them......yeah right.
With a little pushing and research found that my Dad and one brother has them as well. Like Ann, Dad's are short lived. The Brother goes to the ER and they put him out. Thankfully he's only had a few.
I get one every month with my cycle. If it doesn't happen before the start, then I'm sure to have one that actually stops my period. I have no idea why this happens.
I will tell you that most times, when my head hurts like that. I don't care about the rest of my body. I do know that this weekend I had a pretty sizeable RLS attack, miagraine, and my period stopped What should be normal cramps moves into my upper thighs. It's unreal. And yup, I'm an aspirin first kinda girl too. It will cut that if I take it early enough.
I can't see how the corilate, but it may be. Miagraines are constrictions of blood vessels right? Miagraines do react to DA's, generally making them less often. And if RLS has something to do with dopamine then maybe a sudden change in the bodies level of dopamine is a trigger for the headache as well as the RLS in some.
Just a note, I think I read while researching iron that aspirin lowers the iron levels in our body as well. Thinning the blood as it does, maybe your RLS levels are in connection to the aspirin you take when you have a headache. Not fully I know but that may be your connection Sara.
Just rambling I let ya'll tell me if it hold water or not.

[Leonne]

His Sara and freinds
I was going to ask the same question as you did, so I'll enter my two cents worth.

I have had migraines with all the symtoms until I was about 42. I don't know what happened, but I get everything but the pain, thank goodness. Two of my four children have sever migraines. Both have RLS. My daughter teaches math in college. At least twice a month she ended up in the hospital for three days for her more sever ones. She has gotten relief from Botox treatments.

My son was not so lucky. He tried a stimulator. He ended up with infection that forced the doctor to take the device out. In the process the doctor injured the nerve. Now he has migraines all the time. He is spaced out most of the time on drugs. At least once a week he must go to the ER room to "catch up with the pain". We finally found a pain doctor that has some plans to deaden the nerve. One good thing, he doesn't feel the RLS.

He has four children. All four of them have RLS, two of them get migraines. I am interested, do the two go together? All 18 of our family is going to be involved in a study to find out if there is a gene that causes these probems.

Thanks for the interest.

Leonne

[GaAudrey]

Hi Everyone,

Just a note to my earlier post. I have RLS and get migrains, but my sister who also has RLS hardly ever even has a simple headache???? Go figure?? I wish I could find out if there IS a connection between RLS and migrains, but it seems just because you have RLS you don't necessarily have migrains. Maybe if you have migrains you have RLS???

Thanks,
Audrey