And, now my turn

For everything and anything else not covered in the other RLS sections.
Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear »

Ann, did anything work?
Did you get some sleep
Betty
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/a ... 0/fulltext
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ViewsAskew
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Post by ViewsAskew »

Here's my current thinking:

I need a certain amount of a long-acting drug to help me sleep through the night. In my experiments over the last few months, methadone can be used that way, but since the receptors are all taken by it, it's harder to use. Besides, now that I've been off of it, I immediately recognized the daytime tiredness it caused me (and that was taking only 5 mg).

So, I want something long but with a short half life. Tramadol is remarkably effective for me during the day, and even at night, but isn't enough to sleep. My idea was to try 10 mg Oxycontin along with tramadol. I'd take the tramadol going up to sleep, then the Oxycontin, and if I woke up, more tramadol (given it was a long enough time duration).

I'd had some weird symptoms this week, though, that reminded me of a few months ago when it was like I'd augmented. The sharp movements while awake, the really strong RLS and anxiety...then, one of the potential culprits was tramadol. Given that I'd been experimenting with other combinations in the last few weeks and had been using tramadol regularly, I wanted to take a break from it.

So, last night I took 10 mg oxycontin and when it wasn't enough (I didn't expect it to be), I added a 5 mg oxycodone. When the oxycodone kicked in, I was able to sleep. I awakened about 4 hours later with RLS. That was about 8 hours after taking the oxycontin, so I took 10 mg of oxycodone, hoping it would be enough to keep me asleep for another 3-4 hours. The RLS was light enough and I tired enough that I fell back to sleep and the meds started working, so I did get another 4 hours sleep.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the headache is back. When I woke up with RLS, I could feel the trigger points already. I was hoping they'd go away, lol. They didn't.

Now I get to see if this is a constant problem or an occasional one. With levorphanol it was constant. With oxycodone it was occasional.

Thanks for all the warm thoughts. I needed them!
Ann - Take what you need, leave the rest

Managing Your RLS

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SquirmingSusan
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Post by SquirmingSusan »

Hurray for sleep! But that's not good about the headaches and trigger points. Sorry to hear that. This whole thing sucks. You shouldn't have to chose relief from one thing at the expense of relief from something else. Hopefully things will settle down for a bit now, though.
Susan

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