@becsbuddy: I'm always glad to connect with a fellow 'sufferer' with RLS. While I'm not aware of any new research, I think Neupro is one of the newer drugs (since it is quite expensive . . . $1,400 without insurance, but with that kind of cost, I ended up in the Gap category with the insurance company pretty quickly - now it is about $80.00, but it was $600 and then $400 per month before dropping to the current price of $80 last month; just to prepare you if you are prescribed it as well). It is considered to be in the same family of drugs as Requip, and even though the side effect of brain fog or interference with cognitive processing is not listed on the insert with the presecription, that is one of the great drawbacks of taking Neupro for me. I had trouble with remembering when I was taking high doses of Gabapentin (about 2,100 mg daily), and the doctor dialed that back to the current level of 300 mg at 4:00 p.m. to stop the RLS from starting, and then another 300 mg at 9:00 to help me fall asleep. That has worked out pretty well. With the addition of Neupro, the brain issue is that I will have a complete and utter blank sometimes about something I just said or did, where I put something, or about something that happened anywhere from last week to a few years ago. Sleeping is so beneficial I've been willing to put up with that, but it is frustrating to experience nonetheless. People will tell me things like it is part of aging, but I also know what my mind is like (and I can be forgetful at times too that's for sure) now, and how it operated before I started Neupro. My doctor understands and doesn't try to minimize that symptom by dismissing it as age related - which is a great relief. Also, I don't know if this is helpful, but I was taking Reuip for about nine years, and then it stopped working, and so I then started having to increase dosages every two weeks. After each increase and for about five-six days, I would be dizzy to the point of passing out, and I would wake up with a massive headache. The neurologist I was seeing here wanted me to just keep increasing and increasing the dosage, and that it what drove me to seek help from Rochoester. I too have an autoimmune disease, but I have not been able to take prednisone since it tends to amp up the RLS.

To answer your question about who I see for RLS, it is a Sleep Center doctor at Mayo. At my first appointment, she took me off Celexa which I was taking for depression, and put me on Wellbutrin which someone else has already observed in another post, is in a different class of drugs than the SSRIs that are often used to treat depression. She also noticed that my ferritin levels were low in my iron count, and she put me on iron supplements until it stop going up and down. That helped immensely, but I find the RLS continues to get worse as time goes by. So, I'm particularly grateful and appreciative of the Sleep Center doctor, and she is very approachable. For the first time since RLS has continued to get worse and worse, she seems to have strategies or different medications to try when something isn't working or has stopped working.

I hope all of the above helps since it is quite long. Good luck with your treatment. . . . I'm always interested in what other people are using for RLS, so if you have any insights, I'd love to hear those too.

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