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Best description of RLS for someone who hasn't had it

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 8:33 pm
by rudedoodle
My RLS is getting worse, jerking in the night when before it was only troubling when I was trying to get to sleep.

How could you describe the feeling to someone who hasn't had it. I'd like to show my kick-suffering husband this thread.

To me it's like a build up of electricity and I have to get my arms to 'yawn' to release the feeling. Legs can feel different, but I think Thats because it's more severe in my arms.

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:46 pm
by ViewsAskew
I usually ask the person to think of something that really annoys and bothers them, like being tickled, being pinched, or poked. Then I ask them to imagine that happening to them on the inside of their body and you can't reach the offending source to make it stop. So, you're being tickled, pinched, or poked (or all three, lol) when you just really want to be quiet.

The closest way I can describe the feeling it that it's like when you put a 9 volt battery on your tongue - many of us did that as children. It's unpleasant, distasteful, and makes you recoil.

That's how the sensation feels inside my legs/arms.

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 2:12 am
by Polar Bear
I usually describe it as something akin to indescribable torture building up.. and up... and up... and if unable to relieve it (with movement) I will eventually leap up like a jack-in-the-box with almost hysterical desperation and nothing, absolutely nothing in this world, would have been able to prevent me from doing this.

Re: Best description of RLS for someone who hasn't had it

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 3:08 am
by badnights
Here are some things I wrote when it first got bad. I don't think I can describe it any better now:

  • For me, it's like a malevolent force lives inside the bones of my legs and arms, especially the joints, and it requires me to be on full alert all the time - and then it cranks up to unbearable intensity, it's a horrid feeling, but I can't describe it, in fact thinking about it gives me the creeps, but, I'll try to focus on it .... it's like the bones inside my joints want to explode, to fly apart, like I'm not a thing of substance, my limbs are splayed-out sparks of life spun out loosely across the universe. Like I'm not contained within myself. And the electricity, the malevolence, gets so intense I want to scream but of course the better answer is to move, to work those muscles, then they re-establish themselves as part of my body and sit where they belong. For a while.
  • It's like my legs and arms don't have boundaries.
  • The nasty sensations and an overwhelming urge to move are triggered by relaxation, paradoxically and horrifyingly, so you can’t sleep.
  • The creepy malevolence living in my leg and arm bones is driving me wild. It's very hard to concentrate. This is horrid. Yes, daytime. I hate these drugs, I truly do.
  • I can keep a slight tension in my legs, and this keeps it at bay, but I can’t usually fall asleep that way. If I relax the legs totally, then it comes on, the feeling changes from a background thrum to malevolence, to unharnessed energy surging gathering building and I WAKE up I open my eyes in full alertness.

But your particular sensations will be unique to you. We all seem to get it differently.