Is RLS really progressive?

Or is mother time just doing her dirty deed on our (and everyone's) dopamine receptors? Maybe we RLSers just feel the decline more than your average human who has more and better dopamine receptors to begin with? Isn't it somehow comforting to think that maybe we don't really have a progressive/degenerative disease? And like I said somewhere here before, autopsies of the brains of people claiming to have had RLS during their lifetime do not show disease. Our brains cells are healthy and we actually have plenty of dopamine kicking around. Our brains are just shockingly low on iron and our dopamine receptors (mostly d2 I believe) are pathetic but not "diseased."

bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/200...

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Here's our autopsy report: ninds.nih.gov/news_and_even...

Over ten years later and no one has figured out how to get iron to our anemic brains when we need it. Oh wait a minute. Someone did figure it out because I read about it years ago on a blog just like this one and tried it. You take one iron supplement (preferably iron bi-glycinate) on an empty stomach at night or during an attack and you will get 4 to 8 hours of relief. I wish I could lay claim to that idea but I can't. I was desperate and willing to try anything once, especially something as benign as a single iron supplement. Only it's not a supplement. To someone with RLS, iron entering the bloodstream and getting to the brain is a drug that temporarily shores up our receptors allowing dopamine to spread through out our bodies and relax our legs. It works the same way the dopamine agonists do, only without the augmentation. At least I don't think you could get augmentation? Not sure.

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I wish that you could teach all of the misguided rls groups about this. I use it myself and have thought some very similar things myself..especially how you need iron supplementation to work it's way into the brain, down the spinal column where it will be useful.. I have used that theory a few times in trying to explain rls to family, friends and a few people along the way. Maybe I read it somewhere or even saw yours at some point and got frustrated enough to use it to tell others? Anyway, it's a good few theories that you have and I appreciate how well you tell it to us. God Bless you Terraverde!!!!