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← Return to Severe RLS solved for me
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That's great. I'm going to have to find me the right doctor. I see a neurologist, and take 2mg requip 6 times a day and I still have the restless leg. I walk and walk. I've cried. It's horrible. I can't take gabapentin, it makes me really spacy. I rub biofreeze, lidocaine lotion on my legs and feet, I get some relief
I'm so glad you found help. That's a miracle.
Replies to "That's great. I'm going to have to find me the right doctor. I see a neurologist,..."
@lilly71
Requip is an older medication for restless legs and for some people overtime makes restless legs worse. Increasing the dose works awhile but the restless comes back. No longer first line treatment. See someone from sleep medicine. They will check your blood iron studies.
maybe gabapentin or low dose opioids.
My experience with gabpentin is it makes my pain worse.
I have tried all the meds, the only thing that has worked is low dose opioids. I have used the fentanyl patch, (worked but not the full 3 days) then methadone ( legs were pretty good, but had trouble falling asleep) and currently using Vicodin at 4 PM, 8 PM and midnight. It is working currently. Restless sounds like not a big deal or problem but it’s horrible, I have had many many nights in tears. Not getting sleep until 5 or later, pacing and falling asleep standing up, totally frustrated. I hate it. Sleeping well is such a gift.
I do find other physicians think using Vicodin for restless legs is crazy or any opioid. Always Ask if I tried all these other meds and yes I have. The new medical treatment guidelines have it listed as a treatment. I have had other mds that treat me like I am a drug seeker. Which is so far from the truth would rather not have restless and just sleep like your average person.
Best of luck.
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Dear Lilly71,
I have tried everything out there on the market, and saw a neurologist at the Barrow Institute in Phoenix three years ago. The Barrow is a large and respectable neurological think-tank to help people with RLS in the Parkinsons Center. He placed me on premipexole, which today, is the wrong thing to administer, due to the symptoms become worse, as augmentation occurs. Then he suggested a "drug holiday" the worst thing in the world: you slowly diminish the pramipexole with no other drug aid to get over the hump; then nothing! I was up a night for hours. I ended my relationship with him, and saw another neurologist with Banner Movement Disorder, recommended by the neurosurgeon who placed a spinal cord stimulator in my spine for what I believed could help the pain and RLS. Unfortunately, it didn't help, and I am having it removed next month, after two years. This doctor placed me on methadone, and the panic attacks were scary. Possibly in time, the SCS or a type of device implanted with help with RLS. It is when I received a referral to the sleep specialist at Mayo, who after interviewing me and truly listened I had PLMD, another form of RLS, and treated me with a small speck of buprenorphine. The dose is quite small, .66 mg of a 2 mg tablet. I am so against drugs, and was so worried about augmentation, but after almost one year, it has enabled me to sleep, and travel in a car or an airplane without the leg jerks. Please do not give up, see about the buprenorphine.